Key factors to increase product sustainability   

Key factors in hardware design to increase product sustainability 

With the revolution in software industries, the product sustainability concept has been changed. Demand for the sustainable product is increased because it reduces product-related risks and helps companies to differentiate the product from the competitors. For example, today’s smartphones will not be much useful after 3 years because it lacks hardware support with new software updates & application features. That’s why it becomes very important to consider the feasibility while designing any hardware for embedded systems.  

Before discussing the “Key factors in hardware design to increase product sustainability” let’s understand “What is product sustainability & its importance?”    

Product sustainability can be defined as “Product performance as per specifications throughout its life span”. Due to easy access to resources and DIY projects available on the internet, the user ignores the product engineering cycle. They consider those procedures as a reference for manufacturing a product that causes multiple problems after product delivery and installation in the field. Due to the demand for fast time to market, POC (Proof of Concept) or prototype can be useful to perform and validate the functionality and features of the product. But It must be passed through the required engineering cycle to deliver sustainable “Design for Manufacturing” products.  

Let’s discuss the key factors which should be taken care to deliver a sustainable product: 

1. Components optimization for availability and price: Once the PoC of application is done and have the desired result, the next step is to select the component parts for application-specific hardware design. Finalized BoM (bill of materials) can be useful in DFM (Design for manufacturability) processes. It is recommended to keep track of the availability of every component and uses only those components which have End of Life (EOL) greater than the Product Life Cycle (PLC). It must be considered at the beginning while detailing the component-level block diagram of the hardware. Price attributes, to the optimized BoM costs, should directly relate to product profitability and market competitions. Considering the time to DFM, it is wise to have a detailed analysis of component prices from the hardware design phase. It helps to reduce no of changes in the future.
     
2. Electronics quality standards: Once product specifications have been gathered, it requires to define the standards and directive which need to comply with the requirement. This information should be considered during electronics board design and component selections to deliver the electronics hardware with required quality standards. Product quality standards determine success and acceptance in the market. Definitely, the product will have the best performance if it takes care of all quality standards during design. To reduce unnecessary expenses, the company needs to consider most of the aspects of the DFT(Design for Testing) process. It also helps to minimize or avoid extra efforts during DFM(Design for Manufacturing).   
     
3. Reusable hardware design: Good market & product research help to identify the features which could be made reusable in different products. This will make sure future-proof investment in design & development. Hardware design must cover modular design features so that future changes are taken care of without scraping. This ensures the sustainability of design with a higher return on investment and reduces the time to incorporate feature enhancement during production changes.
     
4. Hardware design support for different product variants: With the same hardware design, it’s difficult to manage a huge number of product variants. It becomes challenging to manage multiple optional parts on the design which also increases the form factor of product. It creates difficulty to keep tracking of material availability and ensure the quality standards for all variants. It is always recommended to have a minimum product variant for cost-effective and efficient design which keeps the manufacturing process agile. But sometimes it’s a must-have variant of the product which takes care of multiple customer needs; This is important for a design team to decide this threshold point in design variants to deliver sustainable products.  
     
5. Production friendly design: Hardware design should take care of production feasibility. The design should take care of proper trace distance, component placement, and routing of components so that assembly failures are minimized. It is recommended to set required constraints that match your EMS(Electronics Manufacturing Services) facilities so that production assembly time can be minimized.  
    

All the above factors form critical aspects and implementation in the “DFT to DFM” process which helps in improving the product sustainability feature. It generally recommended following the process in product engineering significant parts like “Feasibility study”, “Prototype development”, “Design Testing” and “Design for Manufacturing”. Think about these points to get a better outcome and deliver a great product to the market. It helps you set aside a great deal of cash and constructs the credibility of your product in the market.

– By Bhavdipsinh Rathod