Reducing PCB Costs by 67% for Major Electric Car Manufacturer

By reengineering this auto manufacturer’s PCB, the cost dropped to 33% of the original amount, saving over $375,000.

The Takeaway

Our engineering competency found a creative way to rebuild the needed PCB without sacrificing delivery speed.

The Challenge

In late 2015, Aurora received an opportunity to quote a LED vanity mirror for a major, fully electric car manufacturer. The initial design was a plated-through-hole version that was fairly sophisticated for the application. The Manufacturer also required a production commencement in 60 days to prevent a shutdown of the production line.

The Solution

The engineering team at Aurora Circuits suggested, after reviewing the manufacturer’s original design, that a redesign to a single-sided board would drastically save turnaround time and expense when starting production. The original design would sell for $2.25 each and require two separate printed circuit boards per vehicle. This particular part was reengineered into a single-sided, common version for less than $0.90 each, thus saving $2.70 per vehicle. When applying this to the production volume, Aurora Circuits is saving the manufacturer over $375,000 on a model year basis.

Also, to prevent any production line start up issues, Aurora Circuits built a small quantity of the plated through hole version until the single-sided version was fully tested and in full production.

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