Procurement and engineering FAQ

Most customers place an annual blanket order with monthly releases against it. The blanket fixes the material price and the lead time for 12 months; each release then runs as 21 to 28 days ARO with no repeat NRE. Releases are scheduled against your forecast rather than your order, so a busy quarter does not push you behind a queue, and kitting is planned once rather than per release.

Yes, up to the point where material is cut and kitted. Increases are usually simple if the parts are on the shelf; decreases are limited by what has already been consumed from a reel or a panel. A quantity change is answered with a delta quote inside 24 hours, and the schedule effect is stated in days rather than as a vague warning. Changes inside 5 working days of the ship date are handled as a new release.

With four things: the revision that is actually being built, the BOM, the test fixture and programming files, and a golden sample or the last known-good unit. We run a first article against your incoming board and report every difference, then build a pilot release 15 days after DFM sign-off. Nothing moves to volume until you have signed the first-article report and the golden sample is on our shelf.

You hear about it in the DFM report, not after the order. Any line with a lead time beyond your target date is flagged with the date it would actually arrive, and at least one pin-compatible or functionally equivalent alternate is proposed with its own lifecycle status. Alternates are never substituted silently. Where a part is heading for end of life we will quote a last-time buy with the storage life and the cost of carrying it written down.

By buying from authorised distribution and franchised sources first, and by treating the open market as an exception that has to be justified in writing to you. Parts outside the authorised channel go through incoming inspection in the style of AS6081: documentation review, marking permanency, X-ray of the lead frame and, where risk remains, decapsulation and electrical verification. Every lot is recorded against the serial numbers it was consumed on.

Yes. Send the kit with a packing list that matches the BOM line by line, keep moisture-sensitive parts in their sealed bags with the humidity indicator card, and mark the date code if your quality system requires it. Consigned parts are inspected and counted on arrival, stored in the ESD store at the same conditions as our own stock, and any part that needs baking before reflow is baked to the MSL schedule rather than run wet.

Flying probe for prototypes and low volume, where there is no fixture to amortise and test points can be sparse. In-circuit test from roughly 500 units upwards, because fixture NRE spread over that volume is cheaper than probe time. Functional test whenever the board has to prove behaviour and not just continuity, and boundary scan where the device supports JTAG and the nets are hard to reach. Many programmes run two of the three in series.

Yes. Chambers run from 40 °C to 125 °C for burn-in and ESS, with functional monitoring during the soak where the fixture allows it. For programmes that need HALT or HASS, the test runs through our partner network with the fixture travelling with the boards so the same test coverage is applied. Burn-in is scheduled as its own operation, so it adds days to the lead time rather than hours, and it is quoted per unit per hour of chamber time.

Boards go into ESD bags with desiccant and a humidity indicator card, then into trays or foam that survive the carrier, then into a carton labelled with your part number, revision, quantity, date code and country of origin. We ship DDP or DAP as you prefer, prepare the commercial invoice with the HS code, and will use your carrier account or ours. Carrier transit is not part of the quoted lead time so that a customs delay does not look like a production delay.

Yes, and it is the normal way a blanket order runs. Each release ships with its own packing list and its own certificate of conformance, so a partial delivery is still auditable on its own. Partial shipments are quoted as one price with the freight lines separated, which keeps the unit price stable while making the extra cartons visible.

Note it on the carrier's paperwork and tell us the same day; we raise the carrier claim and start the replacement. Workmanship defects are covered by a 12 month warranty against the IPC-A-610 class on the drawing, and returns run through an RMA with a documented failure analysis. If the root cause is ours, the replacement and the analysis cost nothing. If the cause is a design or handling issue on your side, you get the analysis and a rework quote rather than an argument.

We review layout, we do not originate it. Our DFM engineers check land patterns against IPC-7351B, panelisation, thermal relief on heavy copper, test-point access, and the clearance the placement heads need. That review catches the issues that cost money at first article — a 0.2 mm mask sliver between two pads, or a fine-pitch part rotated against its centroid data — but it is not a substitute for your own layout engineer.