Aerospace & Defense Electronics Manufacturing
Bulletproof Reliability For Leading Edge Defense Sector Devices
In aerospace and defense, failure is not an option. With our commitment to risk abatement, reliability, and service, Vanguard EMS is the safe choice with mission critical devices.
With 250 team members, Vanguard EMS fulfills Department of Defense (DoD) small business requirements - but our capabilities exceed those of most large manufacturers. You’ll gain first class capabilities and expertise, but with the focus, flexibility, and attention to detail of a small business.
An Attentive Extension of Your Team
At each stage of the manufacturing process, Vanguard EMS keeps you involved.
We provide early design for manufacturability (DFM) and design for testing (DFT) feedback, with detailed materials reports and any necessary alternates. You’ll have easy access to information down to the solder joint and component level, so you can make decisions with less guesswork.
Smooth Introductions for New Products
Our New Product Introduction (NPI) team closely monitors your early production builds to help reduce time to market. Additionally, the NPI team validates early production runs to ensure they meet all of your program requirements.
We’re Focused on Your Program
Our program management teams keep your program at the forefront of their attention, so you’re not fighting to be heard. Our Director of Materials helps you mitigate counterfeits, meet RoHS and High-Rel standards, identify obsolescence, and keep costs down. Customer product specialists stay focused on your program's documentation and revision control so it moves through production smoothly.
As a result, problems get solved quickly, projects stay on schedule, and you stay in control of your program throughout manufacturing.
Quality: We Leave Nothing To Chance
Vanguard EMS enforces rigorous reliability and quality standards from the moment a technician steps onto the manufacturing floor.
Even before work begins, anyone entering our facility must pass an ESD test, and cannot work on a device without passing. We produce interactive, illustrated work instructions that take all guesswork out of assembly, and our highly qualified technicians can only work on products once they have been trained to your requirements.
Our ViTrox Advanced 3D X-Ray Inspection (AXI) tool examines PCBAs at the micron level for defects. Our 12-zone reflow oven ensures a high level of control over solder uniformity and reflow profiles. We perform direct drawdowns of documentation to minimize errors. Each device comes with full traceability, and defects are caught early to keep costs down.
When your devices get sent out into the field, you can be confident that they were built and tested to exacting standards.
Who We Serve
• You need a supplier with experience in meeting the unique demands of the Aerospace and Defense industry.
• Teams facing complex assembly challenges
• You need an attentive program management team to efficiently guide your product through manufacturing to completion.
• Traceability is really important to you, and you need your manufacturer to provide full traceability and documentation.
• Your product needs to meet IPC Class 3 or J-STD-00 Standards.
• You need your product manufactured under a certified quality management system, such as ISO 9001:2015, AS9100:2016, or ISO 13485:2016.
• Programs needing to meet CMMC and COMSEC requirements.
• Manufacturing needs to align quickly to support product ramp-up requirements.
• You need to reduce the cost of returns and the overall risk of field failure.
• New customers looking for proven product introduction processes that require understanding and flow down of all requirements.
• Your current supplier is not meeting your service, quality, or schedule expectations, or is unable to take on more work.
Capabilities
• Multiple build levels:
• Sub-level: Partial electrical and/or mechanical assemblies.
• Box build: Multiple sub-level assemblies wired together.
• System-level: Final product built and tested to regulatory requirements. Includes manuals, final packaging, and any branding requirements.
• Power:
• 3D X-Ray and CSCAN analysis of void areas, and mitigation with 12-zone nitrogen reflow.
• IPC Class 3 solder joint compliance on thick substrates with significant copper.
• RF:
• Assembly and test of complex RF systems with multiple PCBAs.
• Speeds up to 18 GHz.
• Real time detection and avoidance of defects that affect signal integrity, including tin whiskers, billboarding, and tombstoning.
• Component tolerance stack up root cause analysis.
• Real-time collaborative review of test results: trends, drifts, frequency performance.
• Shielding.
SMARTer Manufacturing Keeps You In Control
SMARTer Manufacturing™ is our proprietary process flow and manufacturing execution system, designed and refined specifically for electronics manufacturing for over 12 years to provide you an extremely high degree of robust information, tracking and holistic quality control.
Rapid Manufacturing Feedback
SMARTer Manufacturing™ provides you near real-time quality measurement and tracking information, from the initial order of goods through production and testing. With the following information available to you, you’ll have clear insight into your product as it progresses through the manufacturing process:
• Detailed data to the sub-component level to assist efficient decision making for product improvements.
• Test trends and drifts for collaborative review.
• Real-time quality measurement and tracking to aid FRACAS if a problem arises.
Zero Tolerance for Risk
SMARTer Manufacturing™ is an automated process designed to substantially limit risks in complex manufacturing processes:
• Technicians are always trained to the latest standards. SMARTer does not allow work on a product if a technician has not been trained to all relevant requirements.
• Technicians cannot bring up electronic work instructions if they failed their ESD test.
• SMARTer produces a highly detailed device history record, down to the component level. Every piece of equipment, every tool, and every team member (and their training records) is recorded.
• Defects are stopped before moving on to the next manufacturing step.
