Industry overview
What is shaping electronics
Consumer electronics and appliance buyers research online, compare prices across channels and judge brands on after-sales service as much as on features.
- Purchase journeys blend online research and in-store demos
- E-commerce and modern retail compete on price and delivery
- After-sales service drives repeat purchase
Client background
An electronics contract manufacturer, working in Noida. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.
- Organisation
- An electronics contract manufacturer
- Sector
- Electronics
- Team engaged
- IT & Development
- Services
- ERP development, Custom business applications, Data analytics & dashboards
Client challenge
The manufacturer built products for several brands, each with strict traceability and quality requirements. Component stock, production batches and test results were recorded in separate systems, making customer audits slow and stressful.
Research objectives
- Deliver on the brief: connecting production, stock and quality data in an electronics plant.
- Define requirements and success criteria the solution would be tested against.
- Deliver a reliable, secure solution the team can run and extend.
Target audience
Scope: Two SMT lines and assembly area.
Audiences we typically reach in electronics
Appliance and device buyersOwners and usersRetailers and sales staffE-commerce shoppersService technicians
Geographic coverage
Coverage: Noida. Market: India.
- India
Research methodology
An iterative delivery approach: discovery, design, build and test in short cycles, with the client reviewing each step.
- 1Brief
- 2Process mapping
- 3ERP with barcode traceability
- 4Quality dashboard
- 5Insight
We implemented an ERP covering purchasing, inventory and production, with barcode labels tracking components and boards through each process step. A quality module recorded test results and defects, linked to batches, with dashboards for yield and defect trends. Operators were involved in designing the scanning steps so that traceability added seconds, not minutes, to each process on the line.
ERP developmentCustom business applicationsData analytics & dashboards
Sampling strategy
- Users and stakeholders from every affected team took part in discovery workshops and acceptance testing.
Data collection
- Requirements were gathered through workshops, process walk-throughs and a review of existing systems and data.
Data quality & validation
- Peer code review on every change
- Automated and manual testing
- User-acceptance testing with the client
- Release checklist and rollback plan
Data analysis
- Usage and performance monitoring after launch
- Defect and support-ticket trends
- Process time before and after
Key findings
- The manufacturer could trace any finished product back to component lots and test results within minutes, customer audits became routine, and defect trends were visible daily rather than at month end.
Traceability built into daily operations made compliance almost automatic.
Recommendations
- Build on the core insight: traceability built into daily operations made compliance almost automatic.
- Track adoption and support tickets, and plan the next release from real usage.
Business impact
- Production planners also used the yield data to schedule maintenance on machines whose defect rates were starting to rise.
Impact is described qualitatively.
Deliverables & next steps
- Cleaned data file and data tables
- Interactive dashboard
- Deployed solution with documentation and handover
- Support and maintenance plan
- Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
- A natural follow-on question: which channel wins the final sale?
Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.