5 Processes for Managing Design Changes in Electronic Connectors!

Any change to the design of electronic connector products may lead to undesirable and unexpected results. In order to manage the risks related to design changes, a complete and effective process is needed. This article mainly shares with you the management of electronic connector manufacturers. 5 processes for design changes! There are many factors that motivate changing the design of electronic connectors, usually these include: the need for enhanced performance by a specific customer or the general market (competitive performance), unexpected problems with the connector design found after the connector is put on the market, reduced connector manufacturing costs (price competition), and discontinued materials used to manufacture the connectors, etc. There is a need for change in connector design.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Consider the requirements of the International Organization for Standardization of electronic connectors: According to Article 7.3. 7 of ISO 9001-2008, changes in connector design and development should be identified and recorded. Changes should be reviewed, verified and confirmed as appropriate, and approved before implementation. Moreover, the review of connector design and development changes should include an assessment of the impact of the changes on components and delivered products, and records of the change review results and any necessary actions should be maintained. These requirements are particularly important for changes made after the connector design has been verified and released for sale by the customer. 2. Evaluate electronic connector design change requests: Establish a team to review, evaluate, verify, validate and implement electronic connector changes. The team first needs to determine whether the change request is an issue big enough to initiate an investigation, whether the connector's insertion and removal force is too high to meet product specifications or may be damaged or injured during assembly, or this is largely to improve customer satisfaction. This is important from an engineer's point of view because to reduce connector plugging and unplugging forces may require changing the design of the contacts, and this change can result in lower normal forces and lead to failure modes that ultimately affect higher contact resistance or even intermittent open circuits. Therefore, solving one problem may lead to another problem, which may affect the performance of the final product. 3. Formulate the design solution of electronic connector change: If the team and the approval authority decide to implement the design change of electronic connector, the design engineer will apply the creativity and skills of connector to the project. This part of the design change process is basically the same as the development stage of new product development, which may include finite element analysis and tolerance analysis, updated design failure mode and effect analysis, and prototype evaluation. The design engineer needs to determine that a small change in the size of the connector spring will reduce the fitting force, and the resulting small reduction in normal force will not require any changes to the product specifications, the changes are the internal design of the connector, and the changed product will be fully compatible with the existing design. 4. Test the changes after changing the design of electronic connectors: Before manufacturing the electronic connector products for sale, the production tools will be modified and used for trial production. The design engineer will submit the products for any required design verification tests, and the production process will also be verified during this pre-production run. At this point, the approval authority will review the design changes of the electronic connector, which will verify that there is a documented record that all activities have been successfully completed and the supporting data has been properly stored. Before approving implementation, it is necessary to determine which customers purchased the electronic connectors and whether there is a contractual agreement among these customers to review and approve the changes prior to implementation, and after any necessary customer approvals are obtained, the implementation of the changes can begin, the final approval of the design changes is documented and the changes are implemented. 5. Change the design of the electronic connector according to the customer's notification: It has been determined that since the customer will see some changes in the mating force and disengagement force with the design change, the customer purchasing the connector will receive a notification of the change, which will include the implementation date. At this point, the production planning and logistics team will dispose of the electronic connectors in stock, the production drawings will be changed, the changed design will start production, and the implementation phase requires excellent coordination and communication skills and necessary inventory management tools for components and finished products. Summary: A small change in electronic connector design can require a lot of work, so uncontrolled changes to product design and manufacturing processes usually create more and greater problems for customers and connector suppliers, Connector suppliers with strong processes to control product and manufacturing process changes will also provide superior connector and customer service, When evaluating connector suppliers, be sure to evaluate their design change process against your needs and ISO 9001-2008 clause 7.37.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have related [connector wiring harness and cable products] purchasing/purchasing needs or want to purchase/understand which connector wiring harness and cable product solutions we can provide, please contact our business staff below; If you have related [Connector Wiring Harness Cable Products] sales/resources and promotion needs, please click "→ Business Cooperation ←" to negotiate with a dedicated person!