Product sharing allows for cooperation in the production of electronic systems by making product information available to the various parties in the production chain.
By default, a product can only be accessed by its owner, normally the company that published the product. Placing an order for fabrication of a product automatically makes the necessary product data available to the fabricator. In addition, the owner can make a product visible to other companies (partners) by sharing the product.
Typical product sharing scenarios
Design bureau: When a design bureau does a PCB layout, the designer uses the Import Module to publish the product. While publishing, the designer can specify that the product is to be owned by one of his partners, and optionally create a share so that he is also able to view the product.
Purchaser: A purchaser can get quotations for board fabrication in a couple of different ways.
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The easiest method is to use the Quotation Module to get instant online quotations from participating fabricators. By choosing a satisfactory price/quantity/delivery combination, an order can be placed directly within Macaos Enterprise.
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Alternately, an RFQ for assembly of the product may be generated with the Assembly Data Manager. The EMS provider will then be able to panelize, purchase and populate the product with the data that has been shared with them through Macaos Enterprise. The Assembly Data Manager will automatically create partnerships and product shares, if necessary.
EMS provider (Assembly house): A product owner can order populated PCBs from an EMS provider. With the Panelization Module, the EMS provider can create a panelized version of the product, so that they have full control over stepping, fiducials, tooling holes, etc. The EMS provider then orders the panels from the fabricator, creates and orders a solder paste stencil, populates the boards using data extracted from the Assembly Data Manager, creates a test fixture to test the populated boards, a depanelization fixture and routing program, and finally delivers the finished boards to the product owner.