The defense industry’s struggle with component obsolescence can be exacerbated by engineering’s efforts to redesign older thru-hole PCB’s to modern SMT technology. Case in point, a major defense contractor and recent addition to NPI’s Mil-Aero customer base, recently went through such an endeavor in support of an upgrade to a civilian aircraft flight control system. Challenged with a tight build schedule, the defense contractor quickly redesigned the PCB from thru-hole technology to SMT, but overlooked updating the BOM’s component part numbers to SMT equivalents.
NPI received an award for a full turnkey build including: PCB Fab, Kit, and Assembly, but upon receipt of the full file package, discovered the BOM update error. Without missing stride, NPI scrubbed the defense contractor’s BOM and updated each part number to its SMT equivalent. NPI’s project manager was then able to procure all needed SMT components, completing the assembly on schedule. This type of effort and result is what differentiates NPI from its competitors.