Design Chain Associates Announces a New White Paper: Avoiding Design Chain Land Mines in the High Tech Startup

The new supply chain structure that many Electronic Original Equipment Manufacturers (EOEMs) have knowingly or unknowingly put in place by outsourcing procurement and production has not lived up to expectations. Part of the reason is that EOEMs often fail to plan their supply chains prior to the product design phase of a project.

San Francisco, California - November 18, 2002 - Design Chain Associates, LLC, the leading Electronics System Level (ESL) Design Chain consulting firm, explains how Electronics OEMs can mitigate design-chain-related supply chain risk before and during production in a new white paper entitled "Avoiding Design Chain Land Mines in the High Tech Startup". "Land mines" like fragmented supply chains or obsolete or allocated parts are created during product design by the specification and selection of the wrong parts and/or suppliers. Planning your supply chain prior to product design is key to avoiding problems that impact time-to-market, profitability, and the effective use of human resources.

Start-ups are particularly prone to these sorts of problems because they rightly perceive their value proposition to be their product design, rather than their manufacturing prowess. Component Engineering, Procurement, Operations and production personnel are thus typically not part of the founding team, and may not be brought in until too late in the development or test phase of the product lifecycle. This paper outlines why these problems exist and defines a structure to mitigate them. The paper can be viewed at http://www.designchain.biz/landmine/">www.designchain.biz/landmine.

About Design Chain Associates, LLC

Design Chain Associates, LLC provides consulting services to Electronics Original Equipment Manufacturers. DCA focuses on the Design Chain, which defines and sets up the Supply Chain. DCA brings strategic value to clients through "Best Practice" process and methodology guidance on supplier and component selection, qualification, and lifecycle management. DCA also provides other core services relating to corporate acquisition integration; "womb-to-tomb" Component Engineering support; and software tool assessment, configuration guidance, and user education. San Francisco-based DCA has a local presence in other high-tech regions of the United States such as the Austin/Houston corridor and the Boston region as well as associates around the globe. For more information, visit DCA on the web at http://www.designchain.biz">www.designchain.biz.