many where they can easily communicate with the world’s leading engineers,
touring companies and system integrators, not to mention local audio professionals who make up the majority of our
industry.
Yamaha’s product development process is structured to assess product reliability and quality control down to the
finest detail from every perspective possible. The development process is a part
of a strict, externally-monitored quality
control program tied to ISO9001:2000,
an internationally recognized standard
for quality in manufacture.
The development process consists of
six stages. In order to advance to the
next stage of development, the product
must pass a strictly enforced and standardized list of criteria. The objective
of this systematic, highly standardized
process is to eradicate all possible quality problems before shipping, and to
have the many departments and people
involved in the process achieve a common goal by following the same set of
rules. This is why even before a product
moves into production it will have demonstrated that it meets both safety and
reliability standards.
STAGE 1: PLANNING
The first stage is the planning stage,
where product ideas are discussed
with simple sketches, drawings or a
paper mockup. The R&D team travels around the globe to consult product concept with key users to further
develop product design and specifications. Some ideas are abandoned,
while others grow through the extensive evaluation process. Feasibility of
all required technologies is carefully
studied. Business planning is also an
important task at this stage. Great new
technology can become commercial
failure if introduced way ahead of its
time or at the wrong price point. We
continually study the marketplace very
closely in order to introduce the right
technology at the right time.
A virtual design simulation, created with paper, allows designers
to review their ideas in a realized mock-up.
STAGE 2: PRODUCT DESIGN
Achieving optimal design early in
the development process is crucial in
achieving product reliability. Before
building the first prototype, careful
consideration is taken to optimize the
design architecture by efficient circuit
board layout, harness routing, etc. All
designs are inspected to clear a “must
check” list of roughly a thousand
checkpoints we have compiled over the
many years of manufacturing audio
equipment. Architectural analysis is
conducted through computerized simulation called “Virtual Design Review.”
This simulation allows engineers
to experiment circuit design and layout before building the first prototype.
Harness routing, EMC (
electromagnetic compatibility) radiation are all
important elements simulated at this
stage, but the ease of assembly is also
carefully inspected. A reliable product
must be easy to assemble in order to
eliminate possibilities of mishandling
during production.
Virtual simulation is also used for
thermal analysis. There are many heat
generating components in audio equipment, and the design must allow for the
heat to be effectively released. Reduced
heat also helps prolong life of the product. After careful examination of heat
emission within the product, placement
of parts including fans and heatsinks is
decided upon to achieve efficient cooling as seen in the image below. The
error rate of this simulation is about 10
percent, which of course, is corrected in
the next stage of development by using
prototypes. Virtual analysis of architectural and thermal design helped eliminate an entire “early prototype” stage in
the development, greatly reducing time
and cost required for trial and error
engineering on actual prototypes.
