3. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
About Zebulon Solutions, LLC
Founded in 2009
Acquired Technical Mandala, a Colorado design services
company specializing in electronics design, in 2012
2100 sq. ft. office / lab in Longmont, CO
Global customer base
• From startups to billion dollar multinationals
Team averages 20 years of industry experience with 100+
successful production launches under our collective belts
5. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Design
Zebulon Solutions can do the full design, take on a small
piece or subsystem, or do the grunt work at the end to
finalize the design. In all cases we do everything with an
eye toward manufacturability, supply chain and cost.
Design services:
• Concept design
• Systems architecture and engineering
• Detailed design
o Electrical / Mechanical
o Software / Firmware
o Mechatronics
• Design finalization
• Prototyping and pretesting
• Design Failure Mode Effects Analysis (DFMEA)
6. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Redesign
Products often need to be redesigned for cost,
functionality, or manufacturability reasons
Cost isn’t the only parameter, but it is a big one
Analysis
• DFx: Design for Manufacturing / Assembly / Test / etc.
• Independent Design Assessment
• Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA)
• Tolerance analysis
Redesign
• Cost downs
• Proactive or reactive
• Board, subsystem or complete product
7. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Reverse engineering
Analyzing competitors’ products to
understand performance, cost and
supply chain.
Teardown services include:
• Teardowns
• Reverse engineering
• Supply chain reconstructions
Teardowns can be used to analyze
the competition, avoiding IP issues,
and even to bring in buy
subsystems
8. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Industrialization
Industrialization is at the core of productization, the
optimization of the processes, testing and tools that will
be used to manufacture the product
Design validation testing
• Environmental and life testing
• Regulatory and safety
Tooling
Production test development
Supply chain development
Contract manufacturer selection
Process optimization
Process validation testing
9. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Supply chain
The supply chain should be designed into the product, not
optimized after the design is complete
It’s called a supply chain for a reason
Cost is only one piece of the puzzle. Other supply chain drivers:
• Where do the key components come from?
• Where will the product be shipped?
• Upside and downside volumes protection
• IP risks
Supply chain services:
• Supply chain setup
• Qualifying vendors
• Selecting manufacturers
10. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Test
A test strategy is needed early on
• Where, when, how, and especially why to test
• Tradeoff upfront DVT testing vs. ongoing production testing
• Subsystem level test also needs to be considered
Test services
• Design validation testing (DVT)
o Pretesting
o Program manage full DVT
• Production test development
o Test requirements generation
o Test system development
o Gauge R&R
11. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Process optimization
PVT is way too late to start on process optimization…
The cost of process change for medical devices is
extremely high
Process development should commence all the way back
in the design phase
Use PFMEAs to find issues
Product specific
Use pretesting to find
issues
Supply chain needs to be
taken into account too Courtesy of Vergent Products
12. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Design For Excellence (DFx)
DFx is a key part of productization, but it needs to
be done concurrent to design, not as a checklist
after the fact
DFx covers all the design fors:
• DFM: Design for Manufacturing
• DFA: Design for Assembly
• DFE: Design for Environment
• DFT: Design for Test
• DFT: Design for Regulatory
• Etc.
DFx should be baked into the process
But it also helps to have an extra set of eyes
13. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Process Validation Testing (PVT)
While regulatory requirements tend to drive PVT for
medical devices, there are more mundane issues to
address as well
A device may indeed be certified on a process that is certified and
still be problematic, expensive or both
Process validation is more that just “run three batches”
Issues to consider (and solve):
• Yield
• Early failure detection
• Costs
• Labor content
• Throughput
• Inventory stacking up
Courtesy of Vergent Products
14. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Other productization tasks
Product redesign for manufacturability / assembly /
testability
Manufacturing strategy development
Cost reduction redesigns
Contract manufacturer selection
Packout design and testing
Software / firmware testing
18. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Example: Optical Touch Panel
Scope:
Fractional VP
Engineering for 9
months
On-site systems
engineer
Electronics / firmware
optimization
Tolerance analysis
Production test
development
Status
• Unfortunately the
customer went Chapter
7
19. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Example: Cleantech Flow Battery
Scope:
Strategic
manufacturing
consulting
Process optimization
Supply chain
optimization
Generated and
managed RFQ process
to select a contract
manufacturer
Status
• CM selection within
two weeks
Future tasks
• Manage NPI process
20. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Example: RV Aftermarket Accessory
Scope:
Teardown of
electronics subsystem
• Developed skeletal
BOM
• Costed out the BOM
Tested system to
recreate performance
specs
• Electronics
• Firmware
Status
• Testing in progress
Future tasks
• Rewrite software
• Redo PCBA design
21. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
www.zebulonsolutions.com
Example: Baby Product
Scope:
Started as design
finalization
• Added draft to plastics
• DFM analysis
Expanded to include
• Extensive pretesting against
ASTM safety standards
• Redesign of key
components
• Generated 2D drawings and
complete BOM
• Qualified offshore tool shop
and molding operation
• Managed the tool builds
Status
• In production
23. Zebulon
Solutions, LLC
Thanks
For more information on productization,
see our productization blog at
www.zebulonsolutions.com/productizationblog/
www.zebulonsolutions.com