Electronics Manufacturing Innovation: Overcoming Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) Challenges

Versa Electronics’ customers represent a large range of markets, products and business cases. The challenges that our customers regularly face vary in scope and magnitude. Versa Electronics 39 years of contract and OEM services have created an environment of versatility, flexibility and reliability helping our customers overcome these challenges.

One such instance involves a customer having finished product deployed in the market when a feature failure put significant revenue and customer satisfaction at risk. In another case, a medical device manufacturer was faced with an assembly creating cost and lead time challenges that might prevent a successful program launch. These two instances demonstrate Versa’s ability to quickly review issues, draw on our resources, collaborate with the customer and produce the lead-time challenged results required for their success.

Case 1: An OEM and value-added-reseller of custom vehicles for the disabled had a $1,800,000 fleet of vans in the field in which their HD touchscreen monitors had failed. When Versa was contacted, this issue had been reviewed by several other service providers unsuccessfully. Versa’s sales and operations professionals met with the customer’s engineers and quickly identified a connectivity problem in the existing cable harnesses for the HD touchscreens.

Upon return to the plant, Versa’s team reviewed the issue with its internal engineering team and recognized a similar application from a previous HD POV camera device. A prototype version of an HD cable solution with quick disconnect capability was produced by Versa Electronics and provided to the customer. With collaboration with the customer’s engineers, a pre-production design was finalized, and assemblies were produced enabling the conversion of the defective units back into working HD touch screens, thus mitigating the significant risk to these assets very quickly.

Case 2: A local medical device manufacturer was at a critical point with a new opportunity that required them to quote, prototype, build, test and provide first articles to their prospective customer within a matter of weeks. The device had a challenging printed circuit assembly within, exhibiting prohibitive cost and lead-time attainment when this manufacturer contacted Versa Electronics. Versa was given just 3 weeks from time of review to the delivery of 3000 units.

Versa’s team reviewed the project, identified opportunities to meet cost and lead time objectives and quoted within 24 hours. This was immediately followed by the customer’s PO, program onboarding, material acquisition and production planning. A first article was turned in one day after receipt of materials and approved by the customer within days. Given the custom nature of the solution and immediate actions to achieve the timeline, there were challenges to overcome including packaging of raw materials, address of hand operations and manufacturing efficiency improvements. In each case, the customer’s team met with Versa Electronics and collectively overcame each challenge. The results of this effort and collaboration included meeting the deadline, cost obtainment and a successful win for the medical device manufacturer.

In these cases, and many others, Versa Electronics’ customers were thrilled and thanked us for our willingness to be creative, our knowledge, experience and the tenacity to work them out of a jam quickly.