These days, whenever an engineer has a great idea for a new product, suddenly the pressure is on to get a prototype created and tested with minimal time and cost. A more difficult aspect of building a new electronic product is the physical design and board layout, which requires a special set of skills to design and manufacture.
Although product development cycles and production are difficult for many engineers, there are resources to help designers quickly build proofs of concept, prototypes, and eventually a mass-produced product.
One strategy gaining popularity is to start with an off-the-shelf (OTS) development kit, modular product or a prepackaged system to build the first generation of a new product. Once a design’s functionality is proven and a decision is made to scale, a systems designer must choose whether to continue with a development product or scale with a custom board. This approach has led to many popular hardware platforms being developed, but the path to high-volume production platform is challenging without help from an electronic manufacturing services (EMS) provider.
The right EMS company can help the designer transition a product based on evaluation boards, modules or other OTS boards into a totally custom design. There are several good reasons to make this transition, but not all EMS providers are equipped to provide the design, development, and production expertise required to transition from prototype to product.
