home » January, 2009

MADE IN CHINA … Is Sourcing Overseas Right For Your Company?

Posted on January 28, 2009 by Kim in Blog, Featured, Headline, Supply Chain | Leave a comment

Sourcing overseas has become so common that it’s almost impossible to not consider it when selecting new suppliers for your business. Thousands of companies offer every product and service under the sun, and it’s hard to imagine the good ol’ U S of A could ever compete. There are definitely downsides though, so arm yourself with knowledge to ensure you make the right decision for your business.

1.) US standards do not apply … so go overboard on details and specs for quote requests.

The tiniest detail left unspecified can easily translate to a quote that’s for something close to – - but not exactly what – - you want. If your requirements are flexible, you can get some amazing deals. If not, you might find yourself extremely frustrated. The grade of material may be different than what’s considered standard here, a plastics plasticizer used might be something ok in China but banned under CA’s Prop 65, or your Pantone color match might be a few shades off. ALWAYS get samples before making a production order, to ensure that you really know what you’re buying. Ask plenty of open-ended questions to be sure you’re fully understood, and even ask for photos of the factory if your product would require specialized equipment. It’s very common for people to farm work out to others without telling you, which adds another layer of potential problems and miscommunication.

2.) It takes thirty to forty-five days to get my stuff? And then I have to go through Customs??

Logistics and transportation are no small matter when electing to purchase offshore. Ocean freight is cheap, but it generally takes 30-45 days. Your shipment will have to go through US Customs after it arrives, requiring a whole host of paperwork and fees. You’ll probably have to hire a company to act as your Freight Forwarder and Customs Broker unless you’re really adventurous and want to try to navigate through US Customs yourself. Even with a Broker you’ll be juggling details like whether your supplier is sending the original Bill of Lading by air, or if they’re doing a Telex release. If the details aren’t ready in time, your shipment will sit in Customs indefinitely while you pay storage fees. Air freight (like UPS) is much faster (2-5 business days), and they’ll handle all that paperwork for you … but you’ll be paying at least $4/kg. It is not at all unusual for airfreight to be more expensive than the products being transported. Yikes!

3.) This whole transaction looks shady … is this really the norm for China/Taiwan/India?

A lot of oddities that might indicate fraud in the US really are just the norm overseas. Yes, the person you’re emailing will probably call themselves by an English name that you’re pretty sure they made up (Paul, Salina, Alex, Tiger, Coke … I’ve heard a lot of interesting ones!). Yes, their email address is often hotmail, yahoo or gmail. No, their English isn’t all that great (I send lots of pictures along with any specs … with plenty of arrows, circles, comments, etc.). Yes, they’ll want 30-50% wired to them before they begin work. No, their banking information does not seem in any way related to the name of their company, and may not even be in the same town. Yes, they’ll want the remaining balance before they release anything for shipment … and if what shows up on the boat 45 days later doesn’t look like exactly what you want, you’ll probably have a very difficult time getting any type of resolution.

Side note: On large amounts, you may be able to negotiate a Letter of Credit rather than just a cash wire transfer – - highly advisable if at all possible, as it brings a bank’s oversight into the equation. The money is still effectively gone from your account as soon as you set it up, but you do at least have some recourse if issues arise.

Bottom line … there are great opportunities available in China, Taiwan and India for the wary buyer who puts in the extra work to mitigate potential risks. Weigh the pros and cons, do your homework, and you’ll be ready for success. If you have any questions feel free to give us a call or email us.

The Harbor Freight Phenomenom – Leveraging China

Posted on January 28, 2009 by Rob in Blog, Headline, Interesting, Supply Chain | Leave a comment

This place is like a grab bag of randomness for the tool junky in you. If that isn’t bad enough their website is from 1989 and they have an unending supply of catalogs and I seem to be at the top of their list. Just when I’ve finished reading one catalog partially for entertainment factor and partially for interest, I get another one!!! I’m not quite sure why I read them when it’s much easier to find parts on their website (as bad as it may look).

We’ve all heard about it before … manufacturing being moved overseas and people losing their jobs. Even though most people refer to this as the China syndrome, China isn’t the only guilty party. India, Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea to name a few, all contribute to helping us move our manufacturing overseas. The interesting part of sourcing overseas comes when you find out that its not nearly as easy or as straight foward as it may seem. Each country has their own manufacturing specialty, communication idiosyncrasies, payment policies, and costs of business. Look for the nitty gritty on these areas and more in upcoming articles written by Kim our “Master of Sourcing.”

A healthy side effect is the affordability of many of the items manufactured overseas. This article is entitled “The Harbor Freight Phenomenon” to cover just that. Below, you will find some incredible pricing disparities. I won’t say that the quality, support, or even functionality is equal for what I’m about to show you. I will say this, for the prices involved one can nearly afford to discover the quality of the item and dispose of it without incurring much financial harm. We would never endorse such wastefulness, however it is a very real side-effect of this pricing model that all of us as humans must deal with in the form of land fills and recycling.

Exhibit A:

So I have a project I’ve taken on at home that involves building some wood cabinets. Since unfortunately Engineer != woodworker, I rely on my woodworker friend to advise me. He said I should get a corner clamp to make my life easier when gluing and nailing my boxes together. What he didn’t realize is where I intended to purchase it from or the price at which I’d obtain it.

Here is one that can be found on Woodcraft’s website for $29.99 and is part #145962. I wouldn’t say this is a terrible price however it is all relative. The marketing experts say one of the first actions a customer takes is to evaluate what they feel the product is worth. If their evaluated price is close to the sale price then the rest is history.

Here is a similar unit from harbor freight for……….. a whopping $1.99 part #1852-7VGA. They are not exactly the same but for an expert woodworker such as myself, I obviously have made the decision that they will both work and are equivalent for my intended purpose. I do have one of the Harbor Freight units on order but it is backordered so I’ll have to wait to give an opinion on it’s quality.

Exhibit B:

Once again, my woodworker friend recommended that, for a clamp, I look for something called a pipe clamp. I know most mechanical engineers and woodworkers are familiar with these. I, on the other hand, was not and recently discovered how handy these guys can be. It’s essentially a clamp that can be made as long as you have pipe (within reason). Once again I visited my favorite tool junkie website, harbor freight.

First I will show you an option this woodworker “friend” (is he a friend if he isn’t looking out for my pocket book? debateable!) suggested. This is from his favorite place, woodcraft. For a low, low price of $15.99 you can get the beauty seen below part #15I01.

… But wait, call now and receive this guy (below) for only $3.99 part #3813-1VGA pipe not included.

I received this exact part today (actually 2, what good is only 1 clamp?) and examined it closely. As you can imagine it is a low quality casting with a paint job looking like it was done in billy bob’s front yard. The wedge (slanted silver strips of metal seen in the woodcraft picture) that allows the second half of the clamp to hold onto the pipe is not at all designed like the woodcraft version. It uses a toothed, camming lever that wedges itself up and against the pipe. I have my doubts as to how well this will work but for $4, how can you go wrong? Surely I will be able to modify it or use it for something else.

Exhibit C – Finale

Getting older is full of many wonderful and not-so-wonderful experiences. There are many times when just knowing how to do something correctly could’ve saved me hours, days, or even weeks of frustration. One of these such times is when I discovered that many of our interior and one of our exterior doors don’t actually latch. Instead, the striker hits the plate instead of entering the opening in the plate to secure the door. This is an easy fix but being an engineer, I figured there HAD to be an adjustment somewhere on the door. I looked everywhere (short of consulting Google) and found nothing. Finally, I mentioned it when we had an inspector in the building and boy was I embarrassed to find out the answer. Dumbfounded was I when I listened to him describe to me how to move the striker plate down using a chisel or router (fancier). It seemed such a hack to me, like adding jumper wires to a circuit, I despised of the thought I’d be left with a chiseled door frame. I shortly got over it and fixed what I needed to. The only problem is I used a screw driver instead of a chisel. Yes, it was a pain. Yes, it was ugly. Yes, I didn’t remove enough material. Thus I lead you to my last and final purchase…. CHISELS!!!!

Woodcraft Chisels (Qty 4) part #148104 for $34.99

Harbor Freight’s Chisels (Qty 6) part #3816-1VGA for $5.99

Now I have to say that I know these are no where near the same quality however for MY intended purposes cheap is on the order of the day. Just for the record, I DO appreciate nice quality tools however it is hard to convice myself when the choice is between NO specialty tool (screwdriver vs chisel) or a budget specialty tool. For good measure I have included a picture below of some of the nicest chisels I’ve ever seen. I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve caught myself lusting for…. chisels for $45.99.

My point of this entire (overly lengthy) post is that great savings can be had by considering overseas sourcing. It does not matter what industry you are trying to source parts as nearly all are affected. There are some exceptions and they usually are in cases where there is little to no human labor and a large capital investment or the cost of shipping becomes the limiting factor. A shipping limitation example would be for something such as a large plastic water tank. They cannot be stacked inside eachother and each one holds thousands of gallons of water. If you can only fit 100 in a container your cost of even ocean freight may exceed the cost of manufacture. In this case it may be possible that it is still economical to source these overseas but this isn’t always the case.

We can help you with all of your Engineering and Supply Chain needs. Sourcing overseas is not trivial and we have all the bangs and bruises to show for our education. We would love to share what we’ve learned and help you design and source your products. Give us a call and we can talk you ear off or give you some quick insight.

Here’s a link that has a LOT more regarding Harbor Freight and the quality of their tools. It even has a list of the ones not to buy.

What Holds the Joint Strike Fighter Together?

Posted on January 25, 2009 by Rob in Blog, Featured, Interesting | Leave a comment

What holds the Military’s new fighter together? The answer to that is adhesive bonded fasteners by Enfasco. Yeah, thats right we’re talking GLUE here. I’m sure those glue specialists would prefer I use the term “Adhesive!!” I bet you’re wondering what possibly could one of these things look like? Here…

I came across these while looking for an innovative solution to mount a product we’re working on to the hull of a boat. After talking with the application engineer over at Enfasco, it is actually pretty common to use these in the marine world. Apparently NASA also used them in the space station.

What makes these so incredible isn’t that they are an adhesive fastener. It is their patented fixture which holds the fastener to the bonding surface and the fact that it is disposable. To apply one of these you first squirt some adhesive onto the base. Next, you will remove the paper backing on the double-sided tape of the fixture. Then you place the fixture onto the surface to bond to and push the upper part of it firmly. The fixture uses live hinges that cams the entire fastener to the bonding surface and applies force until the adhesive is cured.

On the left is the fixture before “set” and on right is fixture as its received. If you look closely you can see the live hinges which work nearly identical to the live hinges on your shampoo bottle lids (or catchup).

If you ask nicely Enfasco will even sell you a very convenient bonding kit that comes with all the necessary supplies and is one time use. This is great for the reason that it leaves no clean-up to worry about. This kit comes with the following:

Acrylic adhesive (other types available)
A solvent wipe to clean both bonding surfaces
Scuff pad to rough up the bonding surface before adhesive application
Popsicle stick for stirring and applying the adhesive
Mixing pallet to stir and apply from

Here are the instructions to install these:

If you are interested in purchasing any of these you can get a hold of Enfasco over at their webpage. They have all different shapes, types, sizes, and materials.

5 Neat Ideas for Your Product with a Printed Circuit Board

Posted on January 22, 2009 by Rob in Blog, Design Insight, Featured, Headline | Leave a comment

If you are using a 7-segment display or an LCD that is circuit board mounted this idea may be perfect for you. Instead of using a harness to connect the display to the main board, solder the display board directly to the main board. Design the board so the copper conacts run all the way to the edge of both boards. Next, solder the two boards together at a 90 degree angle. Make sure to place some mechanical pads with vias for support and to prevent the pads from pulling up.
Leave off headers for programming and debugging (serial ports and usb ports) and instead use edge card connectors or spring pins and a custom PCB to mount them to. The expense of the custom pcb is much less than the reoccurring cost of the extra headers and connectors that are not used by the customer.

Reconsider design reuse when it comes to schematic design and board layout. With more and more devices going wireless there is a need for a transmitter and receiver. Typically these are actually both transceivers. In many cases, the base station has a similar layout to the transmitter. Consider building a module that has all of your radio (or similar) components on it and soldering it down to your main board. This not only saves you money when it comes time to have the boards built, it also saves you from having to design two separate boards. Additionally, with the wireless revolution, if you are building small quantities consider using a COTS radio module as they are much cheaper than spinning your own (in low qty’s). Furthermore, they work without much work (usually)!

If you have the space, a well designed 2-layer circuit board can perform as well as a 4-layer. The most important thing to consider is cost vs time. The 4-layer board will cost nearly twice as much as the 2-layer which is significant at any purchase quantity. However, the 2-layer board may require a few more prototypes to get right, especially if its a transceiver.
If you are designing the schematic or you are hiring a consultant to do it consider leveraging work that someone else has already completed. Many manufacturers publish application notes that have a reference schematic which has been tested and documented. Typically these designs work very well and require zero to few minor modifications. This will save you a lot of time and money in the long run. Additionally, these same companies have application engineers (usually the guys who designed the reference schematics) who can answer questions.

Whether you are working on a board design or conceptualizing a new product, give us a call. If nothing else, we might be able to point you in the right direction and save you some time.

Taking the Delonghi Magnifica Apart

Posted on January 21, 2009 by Rob in Blog, Interesting | Comments Off

The story starts off with me noticing that recently while pulling shots of espresso, the espresso machine has been getting slower at extracting the shots. I adjusted the grinder about 30% and that seem to have fixed the problem. Because the grinder is a conical burr grinder it shouldn’t get clogged. However, I wanted to take it apart to clean it and see how it all was put together. I didn’t get a chance to take the grinder apart because it had more parts than I wanted to deal with on a Sunday morning. I did however snaps some good pictures which you can see below.

This is the machine after the front door is opened. You can clearly see the carrier and its release tabs (red).

I have removed the carrier and the drip tray with the used espresso puck container and set it aside. As you can see, it gets pretty messy in there however it is easy to clean out.

Besides awfully messy wiring (came like this, i promise), there are two things to note in this picture. The first is in the middle of the machine you’ll notice the 15 bar pump which has a label on it. This pump is the main pump used for pulling shots. Then a bit lower and to the left is a large motor. This motor is what drives the carrier up and down. It is large because it is used to drive the carrier into the tamper in compress the grinds. It appears as though there is some mechanical advantage happening here but I didn’t determine how much.

Here we have the right side of the machine. On the top tucked underneath you’ll notice the very shiny aluminum block. This is the heater and serves two purposes. The water is heated here and the radiated heat is used to heat the shot glasses which are placed on top of the stainless steel plate. Also, on the bottom of the machine there is a small water filter that connects into the tubing from the water reservoir (not present in this picture). It’s nice to know they added such a simple yet potentially product-saving item. It’s incredible how many products out there cut corners in these areas. Sometimes it’s only one little item that was overlooked or vetoed by the accountant that kept it from receiving “excellent” reviews. I’m happy to state that this Delonghi Magnifica is not one of them and I have been thoroughly satisfied with it. On to more pictures…

This is the brew head where the magic happens. When the carrier comes up to this location it presses (tamps) the grinds and brews the coffee all at once (genius). The red o-ring is there because this brewing head actually slides down into the carrier. This provides the seal to hold in the very high pressures used when pulling espresso shots. See the next image for detail on this part of the carrier.

This picture is looking down into the top of the carrier. This is where the brewing head resides when pulling (pumping) a shot of espresso. At the bottom is the metal grate which acts as the filter. It keeps the grinds captive while allowing the espresso through.

This picture shows how the puck slapper scrapes the used espresso puck off into the bin. When you empty the pins the pucks are surprisingly very well intact and easy to dispose of. In the summer, we use them in the garden as fertilizer.

Lastly, we have the circuit board. Upon close inspection they’re using a microchip microcontroller and several mosfets for heater and motor control. With just a cursory glance the circuit board looks quite nice and well designed. My only gripe is the messy wiring seen on the rear of the machine. It’s so easy to throw in a few ties and makes all the difference during servicing and troubleshooting.

Easy No-kink Hose

Posted on January 19, 2009 by Rob in Blog, Design Insight, Featured | Leave a comment

We’ve all been worn out by cheap kinky hoses. So you’re leaving for work and notice that your flowers are dying and need to throw some water on them real quick. You go to drag the hose out to where you need it and then run back to the house to turn it on. After cranking on the faucet you run back to the end of the hose to water the flowers. Pull the trigger on your nozzle and….. nothing.

There are many different ways to skin a cat as there are to make a kink resistant hose. Here is a neat one I came across while disassembling the coffee maker for a one-on-one cleaning session. I didn’t get to what I wanted to clean but I sure got some cool pictures.

Notice a small spring is used within the hose. It starts prior to the arc in the hose and ends shortly after. This provides internal support that keeps the hose from kinking. In this case they’re simply using it because they have a tight radius to bend around. In some cases this method can also be used to prevent hose collapse under high vacuum. Typically you would use a hose designed to withstand the vacuum, however sometimes these problems don’t creep up until the products hit the production line.

If you can appreciate things like this then we may be the right design house for you. On the other hand, If you’re really on top of your game you’ll tell us that we should appreciate a better design instead of a quick fix like this! Either way, we’d love to talk. Give us a call or fill out our easy inquiry form.

Inside the Delonghi Magnifica Espresso Machine

Posted on January 19, 2009 by Rob in Blog, Headline, Interesting | Leave a comment

So here we have a Delonghi Magnifica super automatic espresso machine. This is one beautiful piece of machinery. I’m not saying this because of its aesthetic characteristics but because of how well it performs. After using a manual machine with a blade-type grinder to make espresso every morning, upgrading to a super automatic is like a dream come true!

Many espresso/coffee purists would say that a super automatic machine is akin to taking a Geo Metro and putting tires from a Ferrari on it hoping for Ferrari-like performance. I disagree. When you consider the quality of the result combined with the time/hassle savings, it becomes a no-brainer.

Down to business… Check out this first video showing the basic brewing of a shot of espresso. It shows what a “good” shot should look like with the crema on top. I muted the sound as its rather uninteresting.

Next we have the video with the door open. Those clever guys over at Delonghi spared no expense when it comes to fault detection (door switch, water level, used espresso puck level, mineral buildup counter, etc). As a result, a paring knife was used to overide the door switch. I will go into more detail in the up coming days as to what does what.

Here is what’s happening in this video:

The carriage (black plastic with red tabs) is moving from its brewing location down to its home position. We also call this the dump position. This is the position where it dumps off any pucks of ground espresso. If you watch the video closely, you can see the flapper moving away and slapping the buck into the bin (there is no puck yet but if there was, that is what it’d do).

Now the carraige moves up to the grind location. The grinder will grind beans (after user selects serving size button) found in the hopper on the top of the machine. The grinds will fall out of the grinder and into the top of the carriage.

The carriage now moves up and to the right. When it does this you’ll notice after it stops, it moves slightly up again. It is actually compressing (tamping) the grinds into the carriage. Typically, on a manual machine this is done by hand with a tamper. Because this machine has a combined brewing head and tamper, it is able to stay at location after compressing the grinds to brew.The machine will immediately start the pump to begin the brew cycle. It does something called pre-brewing where by it wets the grinds down and waits a few seconds for them to saturate. This allows for a better shot of espresso. After the grinds are wetted it will execute the remainder of the extraction. In this video you’ll notice that the shot has an awefull lot of crema on top. I found it interesting myself how much more there was when the door was open and the espresso was falling straight into the glass instead of through the machine’s shoot. I believe I may have my grinder set too fine and will have to check into it.

After the extraction is complete, the carriage returns to the lower position and simulataneously ejects the puck of spent espresso grinds.

The carriage returns up to the grinder to wait for you to request another excellent shot (or 2) of espresso.

First Article!

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Rob in About Us, Featured, Headline | Leave a comment

Willkommen!!!

This is my first post and I’d like to take a moment to introduce “The Team!” We are a tight knit group of young entrepreneurs who strive to innovate an incredible solution to any product need that you may have. We try not to claim we know it all and we are always open to new ideas and suggestions. Our team consists of a lean group of Engineers (both mechanical and electrical), a machinist by trade, and a “master of sourcing” as she likes to be called.

We pride ourselves on the feel, fit and finish of our designs in addition to making them manufacturable at a profitable price. We do this by finding creative solutions and looking in unusual places for inspiration. We also goto great lengths to leverage existing COTS products to keep the custom part count to a minimum. Additionally we can drive the price down further by utilizing offshore manufacturing and assembling the items state-side.

Coming Soon!!

Posted on January 2, 2009 by Rob in How To | Leave a comment

We will be adding several how-to articles soon. If you have any special requests please leave them in the comments section. Thanks!!

Stay Tuned…

Posted on January 1, 2009 by Rob in Our Work | Leave a comment

We are working on updating this section. We plan to add details on our projects and what we learned on each.