Choosing Wisely: How ‘Fit for Purpose’ criteria impact DAS product selection
by Lee Thompson, Director Industry Marketing Defense, Aerospace & Space Europe at TTI IP&E – Europe
The Defense, Aerospace and Space (DAS) market is well-known for a conservative adherence to product standards, but a new narrative is being drawn within DAS circles: ‘fit for purpose.’ Buoyed by the technical capabilities of large volume industries such as automotive and industrial automation, and fuelled by the sourcing issues of the past two years that were seen across the component supply chain, DAS designers are increasingly open to considering ‘fit for purpose’ products at the product development stage.
‘Fit for purpose’ in most DAS applications means looking beyond MIL and Space-grade to Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) components or COTS Plus. COTS Plus indicates a product with established reliability, and the production and test procedures that meet the customers’ application quality standards.
Entry-level COTS Plus products typically start with Automotive grade AECQ-200, giving the DAS customer access to the latest technology of suppliers to a quickly-evolving industry with much higher volumes. Automotive grade products are designed and produced using quality and production processes that consider ‘how’ and ‘why’ a product fails. This understanding typically results in faster product revisions and makes it an ideal base level for COTS in DAS markets.
How COTS Plus becomes ‘fit for purpose’
COTS Plus mandates a dialogue with a supplier directly, and/or through a distributor, to determine the test and production data available to support performance claims, establish random failure rates and confirm the methods used to exclude defect parts.
TTI IP&E Europe (TTI Europe), a distributor with a long history serving hi-reliability industries, advises bringing a distributor in on any new project as early in its development as possible. With a 35-strong technical development team that includes Interconnect, Passive and Electromechanical specialists, and engineers with industry backgrounds, TTI Europe’s team can help define the product/supplier selection, becoming part of the project’s regular technical review. The distribution team ensures that support from the component manufacturer is available on demand, and remains close to the customer up to their first production run.
TTI Europe’s guidance has proven valuable to many projects. An example is a Low Earth Orbit satellite constellation that struggled to meet its cost expectations. TTI Europe helped define the mission critical elements, which remained space-level solutions, but COTS Plus solutions were introduced for capacitors, resistors, connectors and sensors that bought the project under budget and achieved the required qualification/test criteria.
A further example of ‘fit for purpose’ in action is a range of automotive-grade products that was designed-in to a Fighting Vehicle application. With a very high shock and vibration standard, TTI Europe ensured that the surface-mount components offered either had a flexible termination or could meet this specification. This gave the project engineers a wider scope of solutions to choose from than simply referring to their normal database.
DAS markets have relatively small annual demand, long product legacy and tight supplier qualifications. Introducing technology from the automotive sector addresses these issues: access to a wider component portfolio, potential expansion of the supplier base and access to more readily-available inventory. However, COTS or COTS Plus should not be seen as a direct alternative to established high-reliability (HiRel) qualified solutions, but as an option that can bring technology leadership and a wider scope. TTI Europe retains a conservative approach; ensuring that customers have all the options at their disposal to make a clear ‘fit for purpose’ selection.
For more information on the solutions TTI Europe offers, please visit www.ttieurope.com