The story is common to every OEM and its supply chain: a key component is no longer available, and with no alternatives, a line down situation is imminent. The Engineering, Purchasing, Quality, Manufacturing, and Product Management departments work overtime delivering a solution in the 59th minute of the 11th hour that avoids a line down situation. Yay. Everyone celebrates. If this tale were a movie, it would look like a train speeding toward an intersection with a stalled car—which happens to be a modern electric car—on the tracks. The hero arrives: a classic gasoline-powered Toyota Corolla, and it kindly pushes the electric vehicle out of harm’s way just in the nick of time. Not a mark on the car, and the train continues down the tracks.
In a similar case at Xymox, a high-end appliance manufacturer incorporated a capacitive keypad as the user interface, and Xymox supplied the capacitive sensor. The touch controller associated with the capacitive touch functionality became impossible to get, and there were no alternatives. A new user interface had to be developed. Ultimately, the team concluded the best decision was to temporarily replace the capacitive keypad with a membrane switch.
Using a membrane switch from Xymox represented the lowest risk alternative because:
The Xymox team designed, delivered, tested, and approved the production equivalent assembly within 8 weeks of the initial conversation.
Moral of the story: supply chain issues will continue to linger for years; pivoting is inevitable, and sometimes going back to a classic is the best solution. If you have an idea, let’s talk through it—our experienced team can help keep your production line running.
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