At the start of any new product development cycle, the management team should consist of engineering, marketing, manufacturing and purchasing. Purchasing professionals are no longer simply “buyers” carrying out the traditional task of managing the timely supply of products and services at economic prices. They help explore the commercial and profit issues in terms of technology, cost, reliability and product integrity.
Technological change has led to more sophisticated electronics and subsequently a much higher frequency of new product introductions is required to keep up with the market. Much shorter lead times are needed and fast product development is essential. In short, rapid Time-to-Market is vital
The purchasing professional needs to have a non-technical overview of the design options at the early product planning meetings. Indeed, some corporates are now looking to recruit purchasing managers with technical backgrounds.
Electronic design is moving from Components to Embedded Modules
An example of the need for an overview-type understanding is that electronic design is rapidly moving from individual components to modular solutions integrating multiple components and even software. This will affect future product design, from corporates to SMEs. Modular solutions offer ready-to-go solutions.
The benefits of the Modular approach
Vendor reduction and rapid time-to market are probably the two big wins. The cost-savings from reducing development time by many months will outweigh any extra cost in purchasing modules rather than individual components.
So how is this “Technical Overview” obtained?
One way is to partner with a vendor providing helpful technical advice, offering a general overview and answering any questions, no matter how non-technical they may seem. Inelco Hunter offers friendly technical support to engineers and buyers alike, tailoring the answers to the technical or non-technical enquiry.
To make the understanding and decision-making process even easier, Inelco Hunter offers product ranges that are simple to understand at an overview level. For example, the Powertip range of touch screen modules takes a straightforward three-level approach.
At the simplest level the Powertip Smart UART family of three-wire Smart touch screens features Plug & Play software to speed up the design of the graphics interface. Importantly from a purchasing professional’s viewpoint, as well as being an excellent starting point for new products, the simple three-wire approach means that legacy character-based products can be easily upgraded to modern touch screens.
The next-level is for the more demanding applications. The Powertip MCU range incorporates a powerful STMicroelectronics chip providing a very high level of performance, resulting in rapid response times and very smooth graphics. From an overview perspective, instrumentation products for example, will be able plot graphs quickly, without “jitter”.
Where the ultimate in power is needed, the Inelco Powertip MPU range of displays utilises NXP or Rockchip Quad Core processors, providing what might be called blindingly fast response times and the ultimate in smooth 2D/3D graphics.
Product understanding and support are not just important but paramount to Inelco Hunter’s philosophy, driving added-value support at the very core for the past three decades.