A Deep Dive into Component Engineering!

Hi everyone, I hope you're all doing well! I started this conversation a while ago but had to take a pause for a bit. Now, I’d love to pick up where we left off and hear your thoughts.

As a quick recap for those who may have missed it earlier: Bill of Materials (BOMs) are at the core of every product design and manufacturing process. As a Component Engineer, the responsibility goes far beyond simply verifying part numbers. We need to ensure that components align with lifecycle expectations, mitigate obsolescence risks, and comply with regulations, all while maintaining design integrity and cost-effectiveness.

I’m really interested in hearing how other Component Engineers, Design Engineers, Supply Chain Professionals, and Product Managers approach BOM reviews and approvals in your respective roles.

• What challenges do you encounter in your processes, and how do you overcome them?
• How do you handle end-of-life (EOL) components in critical designs, or when proposing alternative parts to meet tight timelines?
• For example, what are your considerations when selecting or recommending a MLCC with a 1812 or 202 size code?

Additionally, I’ve included a link to my LinkedIn Post : https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7279378978132385792/, where I’ve shared an 18-point checklist that I use to evaluate parts in a BOM. Feel free to take a look and share your thoughts!

Looking forward, how do you see the role of a Component Engineer evolving within the DfX (Design for Excellence) process? Are there any additional review points you’d suggest to improve the approach? And with AI becoming more prominent, do you think it will play a significant role in transforming the Component Engineering process? How could AI tools help with part reviews, obsolescence predictions, and risk mitigation?

Looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Is the deep-dive at that LinkedIn post? 

I wish such links came with a warning because they can provide the author with more valuable information than the reader. LinkedIn provides quite granular stats back to the post owner, in particular if the reader happens to be logged-in to LinkedIn on their device when they click on it.

Could you share your 18-point checklist here too? Unfortunately I'm not prepared to click on that link.

I am not able to add the checklist in here. I'll figure out a way and share asap. Thanks for your feedback.

It's a copy-paste. Would have taken you less time than the reply!

True, but I wanted to build up the suspense a bit before I drop the checklist.  Check-list is here now - let me know what you think!

There's not much to say. The list is full of normal stuff. I'm not sure what you're looking for.

All basic requirement, nothing out of ordinary stands out.

For single source components you might also note the manufacturer's "support until" date, when they may declare it to be obsolete.

I retired about 15 years ago, so my knowledge of components is probably slightly lacking. My job title at that time was 'Senior Electronics Design Engineer', I was never quite sure whether the 'Senior' part referred to my age or my competence as a Design Engineer. The BOM suggests that my design processes and the number of people involved might well be different now too. So I apologise for anything that might seem a little old-fashioned, maybe even laughable in the following...

Final selection of components was usually carried out by the designer(s) after extensive tests using Veroboard prototypes. Tests were for functionality (did the design do the job?), operation at both high and low temperatures as specified by the customer, 'digital drifting' of outputs despite rock-steady inputs, and, sometimes most importantly, EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) amongst others. We found that a digital circuit with digital inputs and outputs could drift both up and down...

If I were still doing that sort of thing today I would have to wonder if SBC's such as Raspberry Pi's and Arduino's could be classed as components, and if not why not? And as far as the BOM is concerned, we havn't even looked at environmental influences such as IP ratings, vibration testing, the speed of a British Standard raindrop, etc.

All these things and more suggest that the Components Engineer must work as a member of a team, and that the BOM needs to contain much more information than the one shown. But - I'm old and nearly grey, it looks as if things have changed since the days when two wires and a limit switch were regarded as hi-tech.

I don't think any of that has changed, as you say, there's so much more that would be done before using a component.

At one workplace we had ~ 300 pages of just "guidelines", which referred off to separate documents for the detail. 

I don't think any of that has changed, as you say, there's so much more that would be done before using a component.

At one workplace we had ~ 300 pages of just "guidelines", which referred off to separate documents for the detail.