EMAC Contract Manufacturing’s Custom Manufacturing services differ from the typical Electronic Assembly Contract Manufacturer. First of all, EMAC is in the United States (Carbondale, IL USA to be exact) and all of our Engineering, Manufacturing, Testing and Integration departments are based in the United States; thus any products, design files, or information is not sent overseas by EMAC. Second, EMAC is primarily an Engineering Design Firm that does custom Manufacturing services. We take our Engineering Mindset and apply it to our manufacturing process. The first thing that we do with a new job is to review the design files for manufacturability (DFM). During this review, we clear up any questions with the design and make recommendations to improve the yield of the board. If the customer does not want to make the changes, EMAC can make the changes or we can assemble the board as is according to the existing design files. In addition to performing DFM reviews, we can also perform Design for Test (DFT) and Electronic Design reviews if requested.

In our Assembly process, we create a closed loop where manufacturing feeds back any issues to Engineering. Engineering then looks for root causes for the issues and creates Engineering Change Requests (ECRs) for each issue. For customer designs, we provide the ECRs to the customer and again they can make the recommended changes to the design or they can have EMAC make the changes. Making these changes will increase the manufacturing yield of the board thus saving the customer money. EMAC has written Custom Productivity Software (mentioned in my last blog) that allows us to track our First Pass Yield to show how improvements affect the board yield.

Additionally, EMAC tends to design and manufacture boards that are fairly complex. Our closed-loop process, allows us to successfully manufacture these complex boards. Other CMs use an open-loop process and tend to Assemble what they are given with little or no feedback. If an issue exists, they will just deal with it the best they can and increase the cost of the board to compensate for the additional time and fallout from the issue.

Types of testing EMAC Contract Manufacturing can provide-

• Automated Optical Inspection (AOI)
• In Circuit Testing (ICT)
• Automated X-Ray Testing (AXT)
• Boundary Scan Testing (BCT)
• Functional Circuit Testing (FCT)

Since EMAC is primarily an Engineering company, we can work with you to design and produce custom Test-Sets for each project. Using some or portions of the above automated tests EMAC can offer the best testing for each Product. Additionally, we have written custom test software known as Test/Programming Application(TPA) that can be adapted to program and test virtually any Product. The TPA automates programming, testing, and logging of test output logs to our Board Tracker Database. The Board Tracker Database stores the First Pass Yield, any failures, and the history of each board by serial number on the server or locally on the Test-Set database logs stored within the Test-Set. These testing logs can be utilized during board reviews or design changes, to identify problem areas that need attention or updates to reduce these failures. The use of TPA Test Software reduces the Test-Set development cost and provides a better user experience. Doing customer reviews and designing custom Test-Sets allows us to be intimately familiar with a customer’s board assuring that we can exceed customer expectations with the production of their boards.

For more information on EMAC’s testing and how to incorporate these into your designs see our whitepaper:  PCB Assembly Testing and Best Practices (Download PDF)

EMAC Manufacturing can build to the specifications needed by the project, defining any required standards in the project beyond just soldering standard levels:

IPC-A-610, Class 2 is our default build standard and inspection for all Screaming Circuits assemblies. Class II inspection ensures a consistent level of quality in manufacturing.

IPC-A-610, Class 3 is the highest standard for electronic assemblies with very low tolerances and utmost consistency–used for extremely demanding applications and harsh climates.

Lastly, because of the current environment, many CMs are having difficulty in producing quality boards due to a shortage of employees, insufficiently trained employees, and parts shortages. Fortunately, EMAC has been able to retain its highly trained staff and has written custom software to help us manage part lead times and allocations. EMAC is a boutique Manufacturer that can accommodate small to medium-sized runs of simple to very complex designs. If the project needs a CM to Assemble 50,000 boards EMAC may not be the best choice. For large runs such as these, we would recommend you to one of our Manufacturing partners.

The EMAC Contract Manufacturing team understands lean manufacturing and deploys Six Sigma business management strategies to improve manufacturing processes while eliminating defects. Look to EMAC to provide your company with a suite of integrated services. The quality management system of EMAC meets the requirements of the international standard ISO 9001 and we maintain a ISO 9001:2015 certification.

When you are ready to get started, EMAC has the following guides to help get the information required to start the review and quoting process:

• CM Board Design Guidelines       (Download PDF)
• CM Deliverable Requirements     (Download PDF)
• CM PCB & Assembly Requirements     (Download PDF)
• CM Consigned Components Requirements     (Download PDF)
• Test-Set & Test Fixture Level Summary      (Download PDF)

Not only can EMAC build your current products we can also assist in designing the next generation of them. Utilizing our knowledge of how to improve product life, ease manufacturing problems, reduce testing failures, and improve product manufacturing times. With the ability to adapt products to meet new specifications, change IO needs, and meet new standardization requirements.  These can include but are not limited to IO isolation, ruggedizing, and testing for the most extreme applications and environments. The EMAC engineering team can provide feedback on current designs, as well as new designs providing recommendations on passing certification testing.

Increasingly, EMAC simplifies manufacturing and the supply chain for our customers. EMAC’s facility is dedicated to engineering, manufacturing, system testing, assembly, and box build services all at our single location. EMAC can even provide order fulfillment services including direct order processing, pick and pack and final product configuration on a variety of products.  We support fully tested and assembled box-build services with an experienced team who ensures that every product shipped from EMAC’s facility meets our customer’s stringent order fulfillment and logistics demands.