Description
If you are building an embedded hardware product, it is important that you keep careful track of parts and materials needed for your engineering development builds. This is essential even if you are already using a well-managed BOM.
Development builds should be scheduled such that all materials are ready and QA’d to allow for the shortest, most efficient build time. That’s how you enable your engineers to learn the most from each iteration of hardware. Using a part tracker will enable you to keep up with the ever-changing details and will help you to succeed at that goal.
We’ve created two build inventory management templates that will help you drive engineering build materials according to their lead-times. For each part you are able to specify a required “in-house date”, when the part should be received for IQC (incoming quality control) and QA (quality assurance). The trackers will auto-calculate order dates given the part lead times, helping you to manage the ordering process and ensure that all parts will arrive on time. Tracking part lead-times and in-house dates allows you to properly prioritize part releases. You can ensure on-time releases of designs with the longest lead-times while providing your team with increased development time on parts with shorter lead-times.
These templates are what we use to manage projects at Embedded Artistry. Use them as a proven starting point for your own build management system – delete what you don’t need, re-order the columns to your liking, add new fields, update the auto-fill data validation lists, and change the names as you see fit.
Additional information is described in the related blog post.
What You Get
Three files are included in this package:
- SMA (surface mount assembly) Part Tracker template, which is used to manage the components for each PCBA.
- FATP (final assembly, test, and packout) Part Tracker template, which is used to manage all modules, parts, consumables, and software that are needed to complete the final form factor build.
- Instructions on using the templates
Template file format: .xlsx
We’ve included a few example parts on each template to get you started. If you need help understanding which columns you may need or how to use them, don’t hesitate to ask here!
