No one likes to pay more than what they should for their PCBs. One of the frequent complaints the electronic equipment manufacturing companies have when it comes to PCB sourcing is that their overhead costs are increasing dramatically because of the increasing cost of the PCBs. All the electronic equipment manufacturing companies have to deal with this challenge. We have some useful tips and strategies to focus on when trying to source your PCBs.
Do not set up your own PCB manufacturing unit thinking that it will bring your costs down. It will not help you save money instead it will only defocus your processes and your other core areas will be affected. Try to find a third-party PCB manufacturing companies to outsource your requirements. This will bring huge savings on every order. You will be bringing down your overhead costs substantially by this method.
Source your PCBs from China PCB fabrication companies instead of sourcing locally. This will help you get steep discounts on the local rates. You are not required to compromise on the overall quality of the PCBs to cut down costs. This is one of the reasons all the top electronic equipment brands have a PCB manufacturing partner in China. The labour costs are low in China and it allows them to give you cheaper quotes.
Try to increase your order volume to get volume discounts. Instead of placing multiple smaller orders, place a blanket order for the year and workout with your PCB manufacturer on payment intervals and delivery timelines. You will be able to bring down the overall costs even further.
Ensure that your PCB manufacturer offers comprehensive PCB manufacturing solutions. You just need to send the PCB diagram and they should deliver you the fully tested final PCBs. This has a number of benefits. You will save a lot of time as you would not be required to deal with multiple vendors and follow up with multiple companies. Not only that, when you source your PCBs from a single company, you would not be required to ship partially finished products to different vendors to complete different segments of the production process. This will save on the multiple shipping costs.
Find out which is the cheapest route to get the PCBs delivered to you from China. Use the cheapest shipping methods so that you will bring down the overall costs further. All these will help you get the best prices possible for your PCBs without really compromising on the quality at any level.
Ensure that you run a sample batch with your manufacturer to establish the quality and the delivery timeline. This will go a long way in saving your reputation and unnecessary wastage of money on product replacements to the customers after selling you products. You should always take long term savings into account. It should not just be the immediate savings you should be focusing on when you are sourcing your PCBs for your electronic equipment manufacturing unit.
