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Case Studies - Chemical Processing
The president of the fabrication company was thrilled: he had just landed a contract with IBM, to produce high-performance motherboards. But then, reality sunk in.
The good news: We won the contract!
The bad news: It's gonna kill us!
The contract required gold-plating the entire outer layer by immersion in a solution of ionized gold. Now, as the company worked out the specifics of the production process, they realized that they had made a critical miscalculation: while they had accurately figured the cost of gold per board, they had overlooked the fact that simply filling the immersion tank with the gold solution would cost some $50-60,000. And that unforeseen cost was more than the profit on the entire contract.
They turned to Integrated Consultants. Our first line of attack was to reduce the volume – and therefore the cost – of solution needed. To accomplish this, a custom immersion tank was designed, which allowed them to apply the gold plating with the required accuracy, but at a fraction of the cost. Then, other aspects of the fabrication process were enhanced, which involved both machine design and surface-mount technology, to provide a better, more consistent end product, at lower production cost.
Due to superior quality requirements, we have gone beyond the design and engineering phase of supply. Inevitably,
fabrication technique and quality assessment issues arose. The personnel of Integrated Consultants were able to identify
producibility issues and proposed techniques to enhance the product fabrication cycle. Their ability to assess decisions
based on resource requirements reinforced our business plan and ultimately helped drive revenue - solidifying our
position as an innovative supplier of electronic apparatus. / REAL TIME DEVICES
The conclusion? The fabricator earned a better profit on the contract than originally planned – and IBM became a satisfied, repeat customer
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