What We Do

Understanding + Expertise = Personalized Solutions

At its core, Niche Electronics is a solutions company. Our advanced engineering, product development, and manufacturing capabilities enable you to overcome challenges – and harness new opportunities.

By establishing an early understanding of your product’s function, asking questions, and applying our production expertise throughout the process, our highly qualified team ushers you from early-stage prototype builds, through new product introduction, and into full scale production

DESIGN

Niche Electronics has partnerships with design and industrial engineering specialists with years of experience in bringing new products through the concept-design-prototype process. Design expertise early in the process yields huge advantages: improved functionality, streamlined manufacturability, and cost reductions.

PROTOTYPING

The more accurate the initial design and production, the greater the likelihood becomes of a successful production run. Prototyping can help determine whether product adjustments are needed sooner than later.

Our prototyping process allows us to test your product at multiple stages of design and make detailed adjustments as needed to tailor the solution before full production. This offers several advantages including a reduction in waste, costs, and production time because of the early elimination of pre-production errors.

MANUFACTURING

High-Speed Surface Mount Assembly

Micro-BGA
LGA
Ultra-fine pitch integrated circuits (passive case sizes down to 0201)
Solder paste inspection
Long chamber convection reflow
Thermal profiling
Rigid, rigid flex, flex, hybrid and metal back constructions
RoHS and Non-RoHS technologies
Aqueous and No-Clean flux chemistries

Thru-hole Assembly

Axial and Radial lead forming equipment
Semi-automatic component locators
Wave/Selective soldering equipment
RoHS and Non-RoHS technologies
Aqueous and No-Clean flux chemistries

NEW! Wire Harness and Cable Assembly

Automated cut, strip, terminate processes for high volume wire processing wire gauge from 2/0-32
Functional testing using custom test jigs
Wire marking/label wrapping
Automated pull testing
Waterproofing
Built to industry standard IPC-WHMA-A-620 Class II and Class III and UL 508A standards

Niche Electronics uses a cellular manufacturing approach to provide flexibility in our systems integration and “Box Build” environment.

Each projects’ self-contained manufacturing cells are designed to meet product requirements, yielding a tightly controlled solution across the entire assembly, testing, configuration, and packaging processes. These flexible cells are configurable and adaptable to our customers fluctuating production needs.

We recently expanded our production capabilities in the areas of wire harnesses and cable assemblies. We build, and custom test these types of products to IPC/WHMA-A-620. These components provide a robust wiring solution designed for ease of installation.

TESTING

Niche Electronics offers a faster, more proactive response to quality improvement with detailed testing, test result recording, and tracking. Processes include 3D Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) and real-time X-ray inspection.

Rapid, critical, quality testing reduces the number of iterations needed to meet design specifications as well as the amount of post-manufacturing testing. Faster testing turnaround expedites verification and validation of the design for production, and minimizes the number of unusable boards due to errors and defects, which lessens material waste.

SUPPLY CHAIN

The Niche Electronics supply chain management strategy focuses on combining procurement expertise and real-time proprietary management information systems to lower material cost and minimize production interruptions. Key elements:

COST MANAGEMENT

A focus on lowest cost of ownership that includes economic order quantity (EOQ) calculations, inventory-turn analysis, suggested alternate sources of supply and regular supplier performance reviews

ERROR REDUCTION

Use of industry-standard tools to automatically perform bill of materials scrubbing and other parts and process checks.

COMPETITIVE SOURCING

A commodity management approach that ensures competitive costs, appropriate lot sizes and minimal lead-time on fabricated parts

SECURE STORAGE

Secure onsite storage for high value parts and dedicated inventory locations for all customers

MATERIALS ASSESSMENT

Real-time visibility into material status which enables our team to rapidly identify and address exceptions

COUNTERFEIT PREVENTION

A robust process for counterfeit prevention that conforms to AS5553 and membership in the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP)

COMPLIANCE

The ability to automatically collect mandated compliance data related to RoHS, Conflict Minerals, and other certifications required by customers

New Product Introduction

Niche Electronics applies a formal procedure that ensures the transition from design to volume production meets your goals for quality, cost, and speed. Our focus is on eliminating defects and production inefficiencies by working smarter from day one:

DESIGN FOR DEVELOPMENT

Focus on manufacturability, assembly, and testability as early in the product development process as possible

MATERIALS CONFORMITY

Validation of all parts against the approved vendor list and RoHS status, ensuring material conformance to your specifications

DOCUMENTATION FOR IMPROVEMENT

Written feedback on lessons learned in prototyping and pre-production

CONSISTENCY IN PRODUCTION

Use of same production equipment and processes for prototypes and volume production ensuring repeatability

PERSONNEL COORDINATION

Continuous communication among Niche’s procurement and engineering personnel and your team members

CRITICAL PROCESS TRACKING

A robust documentation control and engineering change order (ECO) implementation process ensuring the latest released documentation revision is used by the production team

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

A willingness to structure a materials strategy that supports your needs including turnkey, consignment or a blend of the two until existing inventory is consumed

EASY-TO-UNDERSTAND SYSTEMS

Real-time systems that provide visibility into materials pipeline status, production status and quality data

TESTING TO REDUCE COSTS

Inspection and test options including automated optical inspection (AOI) and x-ray to provide a lower non-recurring engineering costs on prototypes or low-volume products