For the job to be perfect, it is crucial that a custom cable assemblies manufacturer and you take your time to learn and understand the requirements of your product prior to going in the design phase.
When you, as a client, are assessing different cable assemblies manufacturers, it can easily become quite overwhelming to find the right manufacturer for the job. This is an important decision-making phase which requires critical thinking.
To help with this seemingly impossible decision-making process, try asking the short listed manufacturers something about their practices and how their design process work. This will help you to understand whether they are a suitable candidate for your business or not.
One of the most important things many business-owners forget to ask about is the shipping process used by a cable assembly manufacturer. This may seem like an odd assessment, but believe it or not, shipping is one of the weakest points of many of these manufacturers.
If your requirements include assemblies with fragile components, such as USB-C or Lightening Port connectors, then shipping will make a huge difference. Because of their fragile nature, if a company doesn’t ship them accordingly, they can reach you damaged.
So it is important to make sure that the cables are shipped professionally to reduce knots and tangles on the way. This is the number one cause of cable damage during shipping.
Also, you will highly unlikely want to deal with a messed up shipment with a lot of tangled wires because it is tedious to unpack these wires. Asking your cable assembly manufacturer to take extra care while shipping these fragile materials will ensure that these will arrive at your door in perfect form. This will also help you save a lot of trouble, effort, and time.
Next thing which is as important as shipping, but ignored, is the fact that no one bothers to ask about quality control testing. An exemplary cable assemblies manufacturer will always have a dedicated quality control testing department with professional staff.
The company must make sure that each and every batch of the cables is extensively tested before shipped to you. Otherwise, you may end up with cables with broken or malfunctioned connectors. Sometimes these cables can even damage the electronics they will be connected to.
Last but not least, also ask the cable assembly manufacturer to label the wires clearly. You will be surprised how many manufacturers don’t bother putting proper labeling on the cables. This can lead to a lot of guesswork especially if you are ordering a variety of cables in one shipment.
There are a few tactics to keep in your mind when selecting the right manufacturer for the job. But the ones listed above should be on your priority list because these are also the ones that are mostly overlooked. I have seen many businesses suffer loss due to poorly assessing a cable assembly manufacturer, especially when they are dealing with the company through emails.