Design is the process of going from a specification to production samples that are tested and compliant. We reduce the iterative nature of the process as much as possible.
The Don Alan Difference
The typical Don Alan design process is summarised below. There are three aspects to our approach that brings the product to delivery faster.
- Don Alan rarely makes prototypes. We go directly to production samples. Not only are they production samples but they are built from a final, fully qualified bill of materials. The first bill of materials is complete with all the details. It can go straight into production without a round of part number verifications and risk of incorrect parts being used. The original design is optimised for manufacture.
- Prices and delivery and samples of unique components is negotiated before they are designed in. As the design house we can choose between many different component manufacturers so we are in the best position to negotiate price and delivery of components. Once a part is designed into a product the bargaining power is greatly reduced – because of the cost of redesigning it. This is an advantage that few design houses take advantage of. Further more the design can go straight into production without a time consuming round of value engineering or a round of design for manufacture.
- Design processes run concurrently and effectively. We have specialists in particular areas of work such as PCB layout and application software. This means that design tasks can be run concurrently. Having standard documentation and programming models means that the advantage of concurrency is not lost with inefficient interaction of team members.
Typical Design Flow
| Settle Hardware, Software and Test Specification | |
| Select suitable components and circuits | |
| Pre order samples of any new components | |
| Design new circuits as required | Negotiate pricing for components for production |
| Create a schematic and bill of materials | Write API (driver) software |
| Layout a printed circuit board | Review Component costs |
| Make samples | |
| Hardware design verification | Complete and test API (driver) software |
| Order components for first production run | |
| Set to work (verify operation in customers system) | Complete application software |
| Customer review | Finalise Documentation |
| Send samples to approval laboratory | Support approval process |
