Case Studies

Industrial Machine Design and Development Consulting

Posted in Circuit Design, Embedded Development & Programming

Summary

DMC worked with a client in the farming industry who had been maintaining a legacy electronics and controller design created 20 years prior. The client reached out to DMC to analyze the design, operation, and industry competition of their existing system. DMC provided a detailed analysis of their current design as well as a presentation comparing several new design architectures considering manufacturing cost, development time, and performance and features.

Solution

DMC’s client had a legacy design that limited the addition of new features and improvements, making the design harder to source and manufacture. The client identified the need to redesign their system from the ground up to support the company moving forward.


DMC began by analyzing the existing design and discussing the demands and common practices within the specific farm industry. This analysis focused on several different aspects of the design including:

  • Best Practices
  • Longevity
  • Performance
  • Robustness
  • Safety

DMC delivered a detailed report identifying issues and limitations in the existing design. Several of the limitations linked to ongoing issues and potential future problems with the product. The detailed analysis provided a basis for continued discussion on critical areas for design improvement along with additional features that would help to give the client a market advantage.

With the knowledge gained from the detailed analysis and discussions with the client, DMC proposed several new design architectures that could replace the current design. DMC outlined high-level details for each architecture along with the pros and cons of each. DMC then analyzed each design from several perspectives including ease of assembly, ongoing maintenance, and the end user experience. DMC also provided estimates for development effort and hardware costs. Throughout the analysis and presentation of design architectures, DMC leveraged its expertise and knowledge of best practices across many industries and technologies to provide several distinct and efficient solutions.

In the end, the information and projections provided by DMC allowed the customer to focus on selecting a hardware platform and design according to their needs and business model.
 

Customer Benefits

  • Development and unit cost projections of recommended design
  • Information to facilitate high-level business decisions
  • Recommendations to improve:
    • Manufacturing costs
    • Market advantage
    • Serviceability

Technologies

  • AC and DC Electronics Design
  • Circuit Simulation (SPICE)
  • Control Architectures
  • Embedded Design
  • Industrial Controllers
  • Safety Circuit Design
  • Sensor Design