Utilize, scale, and prevent the customer churn

Challenge

Telco customers will remain loyal as long as the offer is attractive, the service quality is high, and the portfolio meets their expectations. It’s not an easy job for Telco operators to create a scalable offer and prevent customer churn, all while bearing costs in mind.
We were approached by a global leader in communications and networking technology who was able to support Telco operators in one of their challenges: providing outstanding service with no changes to the existing infrastructure to keep costs down. Our customer’s plan was to provide the market with a solution that would facilitate Telco operators in utilizing their existing infrastructure and achieving their business goals.

Engineering concept

The task was not an easy one as it involved two teams working in parallel: the customer’s engineering team, whose focus was on development of the card/module, and our team, whose objective was to prototype the mechanical part and manage the electronics for the cards. Our task involved planning the whole process – from the customer’s idea to reality; this meant a ready-for-production device and all the accompanying certifications needed in the American and European markets.
Having discussed the customer’s requirement and specific needs – in this case, a hardened product – the engineers launched a feasibility study. Next, the engineers proposed a block diagram schema for the electronic part of the device and the mechanical concept, and they came up with two variants of the aesthetic design. 
After the feasibility study, a modified design options was agreed upon and the team was ready to proceed to the prototype, NPI, and the manufacturing process.

Effect

The result of the mutual work of the teams was a mechanical housing, a management system for the components the customer provided, and the required valid worldwide certifications. The project covered: 

• Mechanical housing design
• Hardware design required for system management
• Software development for system management
• Engineering Validation Test
• Design Validation Test
• Required device certifications
• Manufacturing documentation
• Production implementation
• Production Validation Test
  

What we did

• conceptual design
• rugged 19” 1RU high-density mechanical design
• active cooling
• electronic design (10/100 Ethernet, UART, I2C, DC/DC converters, A/D conversion, RF Technologies)
• environmental monitoring using sensors
• redundant shared power supplies
• embedded firmware development (C/python)
• tester development (application in LabVIEW)
• 10G ethernet
• reliability analysis