- Make sure that each portion of the design is reviewed and signed off to reduce rework. If you have team sharing software, this can help speed up the design review process. But even the standard design review meeting can be enhanced with projected views of the design that highlight specific components and sensitive nets and trace routing.
- Have a well-developed design library in place so that you aren’t continually rebuilding the same parts. Another option is to use a PCB library vendor that can provide component symbols and footprints directly from the part manufacturer.
- Save and reuse common areas of circuitry to save a lot of time and effort in the same way that a design library can.
- Make sure that your design data is backed up and protected against data loss.
How to define the right board size and standard thickness?
Board format has a high impact on the wiring process: if the PCB is small and complex, more time and effort will be needed for the assembler to complete it. Highly compact sizes will always be expensive. So it’s always a good thing to save space, we recommend not reducing it more than necessary to avoid multiple operations on the same board.
Once again, remember that complex forms have an impact on the price: a square or rectangular PCB will allow you to keep control.
The more you increase PCB thickness, the higher the manufacturing costs…in theory anyway! The number of layers you select has an influence on the board vias (types and diameters). Your overall board costs can be reduced if the board is thinner, but may require more holes and some machines can sometimes not be used with thinner PCBs. What will help you make savings is to discuss it with your supplier early on!
How to prepare for BOM to reduce cost?
BOM, short for bill of materials, is a comprehensive list of raw materials, items, assemblies and sub-assemblies, components etc. for product manufacturing. You might think creating a BOM is much easier than making the Gerber file while we found more mistakes tend to be made in BOM then in Gerber files.
A complete BOM should include essential items for PCBA including Part number, Manufacturer name, Reference designator, Quantity, Description, Case/Package, SMT method, Top/Bottom, Points/Footprint, Comment/Note, BOM level, Comment/Note. Usually, PCB Assemblers have their in house BOM template and BOM creating guidelines, which you can fill in accordingly and speed up the quotation procedure.
It’s highly recommended to add components replacement in your BOM. As electronics is developing super fast, components upgrade rapidly with old items eliminated. Though your PCB assembler will inform you about items that went out of production, time will be wasted to locate the replacement and production will be delayed accordingly. With the complete BOM and replacement provided, PCB assembler can quote in just one or two days and start the production with your confirmation. It’s always good to look forward and be fully prepared for any kind of emergency.
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