Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for industrial electronics manufacturers.
A checklist built from how industrial electronics manufacturers work, to print or save as a PDF and bring to any supplier meeting.
What the software should cover
Tick each one that matters to your business.
- Product families and board revisions
- Bill of materials with alternates
- Assembly and test orders
- Serial numbers and firmware builds
- Component stock and end-of-life watch
- Repairs and returns
- Quotations and OEM orders
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For owners and the managing director
- For design and test engineers
- For production and the stores
- For purchasing
- For the support and repair desk
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- Build orders by status, product family and promised date
- Units by board revision and firmware build, with customer
- Components flagged end of life, with stock and open orders affected
- Burn-in and functional test failures by product and by cause
- Repairs received, completed and pending, with parts and cost
- Contract assembler receipts and defect counts
- OEM and distributor orders open, with dues by customer
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- Test bench result files
- Barcode and label printers
- SMS or WhatsApp
- Accounting export
- Distributor price and stock files
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Does it record the firmware version on each unit?
- Can we see which products use a part that is being discontinued?
- Will it read results from our existing test jigs?
- How are boards built by an outside assembler handled?
- Can a repair be linked to the original build?
- How are engineering changes controlled?
- Can distributors and OEMs see their own orders?
- What happens to our current spreadsheets?
- Can we take our records with us if we ever leave?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- Board and firmware revisions are not linked to serial numbers
- End-of-life parts are found late
- Burn-in and functional test data sit on the test bench
- Engineering changes reach the floor unevenly
- Repairs and warranty claims have no home
Prefer to talk it through? See the industrial electronics manufacturers page.