During visits to semiconductor vendors I frequently get side-swiped by something that comes up in meetings almost matter-of-factly. Often it is a company problem, or a product direction that I had not expected from that house; but today I was really surprised by something that I thought had disappeared from electronics a while ago.

This senior manager told me that a reasonable percentage of his sales were still being blocked by the purchasing department, often using the line that the vendor is "unqualified" by the company. The vendor that I was with manufactures mixed-signal ICs with maybe three competitors in the same market. None of the companies is significantly larger than the others. The products that each manufacture are similar but all have different architectures, different packages and different features. A design with one manufacturer's product could not easily be redesigned for another, and might not result in the same feature set being called for by the final product specifications.

In these days of product frenzy it is often no longer possible to design with the luxury of a second source; indeed in most cases the important device on your circuit board is much more likely to be unique than otherwise.

In another meeting today I was told that the company targets not just designers in advertising, but also engineering managers. The argument is that when the designer tells the boss which part has been chosen for the operational core of the product there is more likely to be an assent if the manager has at least heard of the vendor.

So, we have a chain of command in these companies that is capable of displacing a designer's call at either the initial design stage right through to when the full bill of materials has gone to purchasing for fulfillment. I find that quite horrifying.

Surely the whole notion of team roles within a manufacturing environment should involve cross-consultation through the design cycle. When a major component has been selected by the designer the next design review should allow the manager to bless or veto the choice -- based, hopefully, on the specifications or the budgeted price. Making it through that stage the product data should go to purchasing to verify that a suitable relationship exists to deal with that vendor.

If purchasing does not have an existing relationship should it have the power to veto? I would find it extraordinary that it would. The fact that such companies are out there means that I do find it extraordinary. It has got to be a really unhealthy situation for a designer to be involved in.

I am not against the idea of review -- we all have a boss -- but the notion of a direct top-down decision about the engineering aspects of a design smacks of control by those who just don't understand the issues. Do you agree?

Analog Main | Product of the Week | Columns | Editorial | Tech Notes

		Click here to get your listing up.