LACROIX Design for eXcellence

Design for eXcellence (DfX) is a set of customized services offered by LACROIX to electronic product manufacturers, ODMs or OEMs.

They can be delivered as part of the CDM offering (LACROIX being in charge of the product design), or separately (i.e. with a product design brought to LACROIX by the customer).

DfX is part of Advanced Product Industrialization (API) services that aim at providing customers an optimal industrialization solution for their electronic products. API services cover 4 areas:

• Management of the technical requirements: understanding and interpreting customer requirements to convert them into technical constraints applied to the product manufacturing
• Technical definition of the Printed Circuit Board (PCB): integrating the cost and volume factors corresponding to customer requirements
• Components placement and PCB routing: taking into consideration right from the beginning of the customer project the rules for product manufacturability (DfX), and capturing all inputs required for industrialization
• Validation based on prototype: quick prototyping of the customer product in dedicated workshops in France and Germany with specific equipment and teams. Delivering a report on the manufacturing of the prototype to the design center to optimize the performance and industrialization of the customer product.

DfX services are delivered throughout product lifecycle, at all stages of development and manufacturing, and include:

Project management

• Project management has been part of LACROIX Product Lifecycle Process (LPLP) for more than 15 years. This process is shared by all our design centers and production facilities.
• A dedicated project manager is appointed for each customer design and manufacturing project, with either strong product development or product manufacturing background.

Design for eXcellence – DfX

• DfX refers to all the methods and tools used by LACROIX experts to carry out the advanced industrialization of an electronic assembly or sub-assembly, as early as possible in the project lifecycle.

   Design for Manufacturing – DfM

• Taking into consideration as early as possible in the design stage the recommendations that allow optimization of production process (optimized PCB for regular process), integration (right inter-PCBs and PCB-mechanics interfacing) and maintainability (easy upgrading and repair)
• Guiding and supporting the designers on technological choices: housings, connector technology, PCBs, integration flow, etc.
• Detecting upfront the new processes required for the project and working with process manufacturing experts in order to implement required actions (plan to avoid quality risks, process modeling...) allowing to guarantee a satisfying process maturity and stability for starting production

   Design for Test – DfT

• Defining the most effective test strategy for the quality objective at lower cost
• Schematics & layout analysis: determining the most effective testing strategies for design, quality and cost targets
• Predictive test coverage & PPM: predicting test coverage (based on a Presence, Polarity, Value, and Solder – PPVS grading) and estimating manufacturing defects in parts per million (PPM)
• Failure Modes, Effects and criticality Analysis (FMEA): for analyzing and grading residual risks in the process and defining an action plan based on functional testing

   Design for Procurement – DfP

• Selecting as early as possible in the project lifecycle the most suitable components and suppliers to secure supplies and optimize global material costs, quality, continued existence and delivery times
• BOM analysis and costing: quotation and analysis of material in order to secure supply chain and limit risks by means of a detailed analysis of the Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) term of delivery and dollarization to reduce exposure to exchange rate risks
• Component management: component by component analysis of a BOM in order to reduce the risks of obsolescence, ensure REACH, ROHS and ITAR compliance, with a potential proposal of alternatives in order to replace the risky components
• Proposals to reduce cost and secure supply-chain: proposal of alternative solutions in order to reduce cost or find a second possibility of resourcing of components that are mono source today