In this series of articles, we have been pressing the importance of
documentation control. We have covered mechanical and electronic component
documentation. This post ends our series by discussing manufacturing and
contract assembly package documentation.
Production Process Flow Charts:
The production documentation flowchart shows how you intend to manufacture
your product as stages, the equipment, and tools you have planned to use
and quality control checks. The quality control checks should show clearly
that you intend to check the product for quality at specific stages of
manufacture.
Test Procedures and Fixtures:
If the manufacturer developed the testing protocols, make sure that you
have copies of the manufacturing documentation examples. In addition, you
should try to get engineering drawings of test fixtures. If this is not
possible, you should at least have photographs of the fixtures. Certainly,
if you have paid for test fixtures, you are entitled to some form of
documentation.
Assembly Documentation Instructions and Fixtures:
You should have information about any assembly fixtures that are used in
the manufacturing process. As with test fixtures, if you have paid for
assembly fixtures you should get some documentation about their
construction.
Engineering Changes:
Even if you get all of these items, it can be for naught if you do not
keep up with changes. It is critically important that whenever a tool is
modified, or a component substitution made that the relevant documentation
is updated. We have been involved in many projects where subtle changes in
a design were made after production had started but were not reflected in
the documentation. Only after tooling and costly product failures were
these changes discovered.
Maintaining all of this information about your product will enable you to
have peace of mind knowing that you can quickly and effectively change
suppliers if there are pricing or quality issues. A quality design firm,
consultant, or manufacturing partner will have no problem turning any of
this information over to you at the conclusion of development or at
production start-up, but it should be discussed as part of the
negotiations and included in a final contract. A complete documentation
package helps ensure your intellectual assets will be protected. If a
programmer refuses to supply source code, or a design firm refuses to give
the native CAD data, it should set off some alarms.
