Outsourcing electrical enclosure customisation and assembly
Graham Fox, Managing Directort of Spelsberg UK, comments on the
benefits and future of outsourcing electrical enclosure customisation and
assembly.
To stay ahead in fiercely competitive markets, the most important factors
to OEM manufacturers of electronic equipment and electrical systems
designers are the ability to produce innovative new products quickly and
at a minimum cost. By shortening the time taken to produce a saleable or
useable product, extra pressure has been exerted on design teams across
industry, often requiring that functioning prototypes be supplied as part
of the initial design proposal.
If a designer has to specify an enclosure or junction box, it is worth
speaking to a knowledgeable supplier at the initial concept stage. There
are many variants in standard ranges that are designed to overcome common
problems such as awkward wiring requirements, high IP ratings and the
fitting of odd sized components such as monitoring or measurement
equipment and switchgear. For example, these variations are often
associated with enclosures made from tough polycarbonate, which may
require a variety of cable entry options, various mounts for DIN rail and
bus bars as well as needing various lid designs for high visibility or
safety information.
If production volumes are likely to be high enough, a bespoke enclosure
can always be manufactured to suit the application. After the development
process has been completed, producing a new enclosure typically takes
eight weeks from when the designs are submitted to the delivery of the
final product. With this in mind, design departments in many companies
often prefer to base new products on stock enclosures at the onset and
customise them in-house to match their own specifications. However, as
well as taking up valuable development time, the final production of the
range may require large investments in machinery, manufacturing space and
personnel time. The obvious solution to this problem is to outsource the
customisation process, with the most logical step being to ask the
supplier of the selected enclosures to carry out the service.
By investing in modern CNC equipment, a good supplier can turn around a
customised polystyrene or polycarbonate prototype enclosure in as little
as 48 hours at a minimal cost. With such short lead times, it has become
more common for design teams to provide suppliers with a design and
receive a custom unit at each stage of the development process. Once a
design has been finalised, customers can then order large quantities for
the final assembly of the product from prototype box specifications kept
on disk by the supplier, resulting in shorter lead times and often a
better final product.
Commissioning the supplier to customise the required enclosures can save
time and money at both the design and production stage. The customisation
process itself can involve anything from milling, drilling and engraving
to custom cable entries, brand logos or simple instructions. By allowing
innovations and new models to be quickly produced, the customisation
process can also benefit the company in terms of image as well as market
share.
Better suppliers also offer a complete assembly service that includes the
supply of enclosures ready fitted with a wide range of accessories. A
supplier's in-house customisation service should be able to produce
enclosures ready fitted with din-rails and bus bars, circuit breakers,
colour coded clip-on terminals for rail mounting and a wide selection of
cable entry devices from simple push-in protection up to fully clamping
IP68 cable glands. This extension of the service provides many additional
benefits such as reduced costs, production time, stock, administration
and minimised personnel management. Customers can then take advantage of
the enclosure supplier's bulk purchasing power and the additional
assembly costs are often more than recouped by avoiding the mark-up of
several different component sources.
For example, a large mobile phone company has recently rationalised their
purchasing for out-door power supplies used on network masts by
commissioning junction boxes ready fitted with busbar, circuit breakers
and cable glands. Through the savings made in reduced supplier base,
administration, logistics and production time, the customisation service
reduced the overall cost of the circuit protection element in the
worldwide project by around £1/2 million.
Even if the final product consists of components that are not readily
available, enclosure specialists can take these stocks direct from the
customer or their own suppliers and integrate them into a finished unit.
All these aspects of customisation are integral to our customer support
service here at Spelsberg and we expect many more companies to take
advantage of our experience and facilities as the industry trend towards
outsourcing continues to filter through to component suppliers.