Bringing a complex engineering project to life is rarely a straight line. The early stages involve making important decisions despite having both known and unknown factors. You might have created a detailed Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quote (RFQ) document, yet the optimal path to bringing your vision to reality might still hold some surprises. At Re:Build AppliedLogix, we understand this, and that’s why a crucial step in our process is Phase 0, also known as the Discovery Phase.
Regardless of a project’s size or complexity, ensuring that everyone involved shares a clear understanding of the objectives and their roles is paramount. This is especially true for multi-disciplinary projects involving custom electronics PCBAs, software, and electro-mechanical elements, often with complex thermal management needs. Well-defined product specifications, requirements, and project scope act as a common reference point, ensuring alignment across both the Re:Build AppliedLogix team and your stakeholders.
From the very first customer conversation, we apply a “systems-centric” approach to all that we do. This mindset and supporting methodology ensures that we thoroughly investigate and then capture product specifications, performance expectations, and fundamental requirements before advancing to the detailed design phase. This rigor ensures that we identify potential risks much earlier and foster more effective team alignment.
We prioritize close collaboration with you during these initial stages to uncover critical implementation details and risks. These are most cost-effective to resolve when we consider the complete interconnected system that will emerge from our collaborative efforts, allowing us to mitigate costly rework and redesigns later in the project lifecycle. Just imagine trying to fundamentally change a car’s drivetrain ,months before its launch, the cost and disruption would be enormous. By investing time upfront to thoroughly understand the project, we significantly reduce such risks.
We define the activities associated with gathering the key product requirements, performance specifications, and defining the initial product architecture as Phase 0, or the Discovery Phase. A typical Phase 0 engagement involves:
1. Scope Alignment: Establishing a Clear Roadmap
We kick off the project with an in-person or virtual meeting led by a Re:Build AppliedLogix Technical Project Lead (TPL) and a Senior Program Manager. This session brings together all relevant stakeholders to quickly establish a shared understanding of the scope of work with and identify the goals and deliverables for the Phase 0 activities.
2. Product Specification Deep Dive: Uncovering the Nuances
While you may often have a strong vision, translating that into detailed requirements and specifications can reveal hidden complexities, which we like to call the “unknown unknowns.” Our experienced TPLs leverage the diverse expertise within Re:Build AppliedLogix (and the broader Re:Build manufacturing ecosystem). This cross-disciplinary collaboration ensures that even subtle yet critical aspects are identified and thoroughly discussed, leaving no stone unturned.
3. Requirements Gathering: Translating Vision into Action
While seemingly similar to product specification, requirements gathering serves a distinct and important purpose. It transforms high-level descriptions into well-documented, measurable criteria that engineers can then confidently implement.
Product Specification Example:
“The display must be sunlight readable, and the touchscreen must work with gloved hands in a dusty environment.”
Engineering Requirements Example:
“The display shall have a minimum luminance of 1000 nits.”
“The touch sensor shall utilize capacitive technology.”
“The display’s minimum dimension shall be 3 inches (height or width).
“The final product enclosure shall have an IP rating of IP67.”
These detailed requirements provide engineers with the precise parameters needed for design and development.
4. Defining “Done”: Acceptance Criteria and Testing
Once the product specifications and requirements are established, we collaboratively define the acceptance criteria with the specific standards and / or the functional verification testing that the final product must meet. With these criteria in place, we are able to quantitatively verify that the product meets the agreed-upon “definition of done” in subsequent phases.
Most importantly, the Phase 0 activities generate a comprehensive collection of documentation that serves as a blueprint for the project’s future phases, guiding the complete implementation and development of the various subsystems through the prototype builds. It’s also common for us to provide you with a Phase 1 (or Phases 1, 2, and 3) Proposal, offering budgetary cost and timeline estimates, material costs, and anticipated manufacturing expenses. We have found that the Phase 0 activities help to build trust and confidence and a truly collaborative relationship. While there is no obligation to continue with us for subsequent phases, we hope the quality of our work will speak for itself.
While depth and breadth of project scopes vary greatly, we typically follow the following structured approach after Phase 0:
Phase 1: Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE) Development
We offer a comprehensive suite of services, including circuit design and schematic capture, signal integrity (SI) and power integrity (PI) engineering, software and firmware development, and FPGA design and development. Our expertise also covers mechanical design and thermal analysis, components, PCB, and PCBA procurement, board bring-up and initial validation, and quick-turn prototype delivery. Our team is fully versed in best practices for Design for Manufacturability (DFM), Design for Testability (DFT), and design for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC).
Phase 2: Design Refinement and Validation
Feedback from Phase 1 prototypes informs design updates, feature enhancements, and the development of the product-intent design prototypes. Often, the output of Phase 2 becomes the manufacturing-ready design.
Phase 3: Manufacturing Readiness and Production
This phase involves the design of any necessary manufacturing tooling, development of end-of-line custom functional acceptance testing procedures and fixtures, and the commencement of production, including inspection, packaging, and shipment.
The efficiencies and effectiveness of the later project phases are directly related to the quality of the Phase 0 outputs. By capturing product specifications and requirements early, fostering open communication among all stakeholders, and making necessary refinements and compromises, we can significantly increase both the speed and the likelihood of project success.
If you have a project or product that you believe could benefit from the expertise, experience, insightful perspective, and diligence that the Re:Build AppliedLogix team brings to our discovery phase, we encourage you to reach out to us. We would love the opportunity to learn more about your needs and explore how we can help you lay a solid foundation for your success.
Looking to connect with an experienced team? Look no further than Re:Build AppliedLogix! We are excited to connect with you.
