Author: Ray Keefe

  • Analogue Electronics – Improving Signal Integrity

    Analogue Electronics Sometimes you come across a post elsewhere that is absolutely on the ball. When it comes to Low Cost Electronics Manufacture, Analogue Electronics Design and Analogue signal integrity, the three are closely linked. Many a product has had expensive technical band-aids added to it to cover up poor…

  • Reducing Electronics and Embedded Software Product Development Costs

    First some basic statistics that made me think about this issue a bit more: Software typically consumes 80% of the development budget. Digital Avionics Handbook and Embedded.com 80% of software projects are unsuccessful IBM   So working from the Pareto Principle it is clear that product development success and cost…

  • Niche Electronics Manufacture – Ideally Done in Australia

    So what is Niche Electronics Manufacture about? Well, Niche implies it is aimed at a small and specific market segment rather than a large and universal segment. Some examples might help here: specialist medical devices or patient sample handling equipment Very Early Smoke Detecting Apparatus in wall cable tracing equipment…

  • Electronics Manufacture – How to Select a Microcontroller

    When it comes to selecting a microcontroller for Electronics Manufacture, the field to choose from is quite large. And while there is no one right answer to this, there are some basic steps to take to ensure you are using the right core component in your latest Electronics Development Project.…

  • Reducing Electronics Manufacturing Parts Cost

    This one is both easy and straight forward to understand.   Do as much as possible in software.   But it doesn’t stop there. Do as much as possible in software at every stage of the development. Here is how that pans out: replace hardware with software that does the…

  • Analogue Electronics – a Surprising Way to Extend Battery Life

    Today we look at one of the Project Priorities Perspectives in action. This was a case where performance was the most important factor and so minimising cost or time to market was a lower priority in the this Electronics Manufacture project. In this case the PCB and electronics were Manufactured…

  • Project Priorities Perspective – Performance and Cost versus Time

    This continues our review of the Project Priorities Perspective. See the Project Priorities Perspective post for the concept behind this and Time and Cost versus Performance and Time and Performance versus Cost for a look at those trade offs and how they affect Low Cost Electronics Manufacture in Australia.  …

  • Project Priorities Perspective – Time and Cost versus Performance

    This continues our review of the Project Priorities Perspective. See the Project Priorities Perspective post for the concept behind this and Time and Performance versus Cost for a look at those trade-offs.   Here is a visual view of this set of trade-offs:   Reducing performance can decrease cost and…

  • Project Priorities Perspective – Time and Performance versus Cost

    This continues our review of the Project Priorities Perspective. See the Project Priorities Perspective post for the concept behind this.   This is the easiest of the the trade-offs to appreciate. If you want it quickly and it has to be good, then you are going to pay more for…

  • Project Priorities Perspective

    This is a tool we use to fine tune projects toward the most commercially successful outcome. It works by highlighting the three competing priorities in every project. These are: Performance – how good does the product have to be Cost – how much will it cost to make Time –…