Sound Economic Future
With innovation, new product design, and managing materials in the supply
chain on top of our agenda, Mars International can help with any project
you might need.
The Concept and Design Process
Our engineers not only conceptualize and design unique products, but our
ultimate goal is also to make products more affordable with our approach
to production and the associated supply chain. Our approach always
considers user ergonomics and how they are going to use our products,
therefore we design all those features using predictions and educated
guesses along with referencing other products. This ultimately leads to
continuous improvements.
The most interesting thing about the Mars approach to concepts and design
is the wide-ranging industries our engineering innovations apply to.
Automated Testing
Total quality management is always at the forefront of our approach to
innovative projects. Automated testers for product qualification is
something that applies to almost all of our products, especially those
that require a printed circuit board.
We create test equipment to qualify the units before they are packaged and
ready to go. Some testing involves the light output or testing the bare
PCB. That means there are a couple of different test fixtures needed to
use for the application. This is certainly true as it applied to the
reflective beams.
Testing Reflective Beams
Our engineers already have test fixtures for existing beams, where they
take two beams or transmitter and receiver, put it into the fixture, and
press ‘go’ on the machine. It then runs through the test fixtures, turns
the units on, and verifies they are working properly.
The verification process includes testing if the beam is broken at the
right time, if something is blocking the beam, we also verify that the
correct amount of light is making it to the receiver.
All of these test fixtures are built from scratch to meet the requirements
of each individual product. This is something that some companies might
forget about or not even consider at the beginning of the product design.
Not so with our approach because every single product we make, especially
those that require PCBs, is put through a test fixture.
Sound Economic Future
The Design of Test Points
When our engineers design a product, the real thought starts during the
PCB design phase. In the process of designing a PCB, we concurrently
design a bunch of test points to interface with these test fixtures.
“The earlier that you design those features in, the easier it is going to
be to produce the fixture itself,” says James Vertes, an engineer at Mars
International. This comprehensive and proactive thinking is key to our
success.
When you put a PCB down onto a table and raise a bunch of pins that touch
the board, our engineers run signals through the pins, put power through
those pins, and run the board as if it would be running inside the
product. The earlier we put these test points in, the easier it’s going to
be to access all these test points. After sealing, we run these tests
again on only a select few finished products as it becomes more difficult
and time-consuming.
If a test fails, we immediately know what area or during what tests it
failed at. This provides us with checks and balances to uncover if there’s
anything wrong with production or even if there is a bad component. If it
is found a component is bad, testing allows for traceability so that we
can figure out what’s actually going wrong with the product.
Takeaways
When it comes to innovation and project design in electrical engineering,
mechanical assemblies, and finished goods, Mars International are global
leaders. At Mars, we have been working in the manufacturing sector since
- We have developed the Internet of Things technology for productivity
and management that your company needs now.
Contact Mars International at 908-233-0101 now to speak with an expert
about global manufacturing technology and services which will bring your
ideas to fruition.
