Co-developing a Power Cabinet for a leading OEM in advanced manufacturing

Co-developing a Power Cabinet for a Leading OEM in advanced manufacturing

 

For a leading OEM in advanced manufacturing, we are co-developing an alternative power cabinet to replace an existing blackbox solution. The project focuses on enabling the customer to reduce supplier dependency, improving performance, and gaining full design ownership.

OUR CUSTOMER

A leading OEM in advanced manufacturing develops highly complex, high precision systems where reliability, scalability, and cost control are critical to overall machine performance. The organization operates at the forefront of technology, with extremely demanding requirements on system integration and perfromance consistency.

THE CHALLENGE

Regaining full design ownership

The supplier controlled critical design logic, validation processes, and documentation, limiting transparency, control, and future sourcing flexibility.

Managing evolving system concepts and requirements

Progressive insight and changing requirements required repeated concept iterations while balancing technical risk and planning impact.

Maintaining cost control under strict budget targets

All engineering decisions had to meet predefined cost boundaries, requiring continuous trade-offs and justification across interconnected subsystems.

Balancing shared ownership in co-development

Clear agreements were needed between stakeholders on responsibilities and decision-making in a jointly developed system.

Building excellence together

By working as one integrated team, PDM and the OEM jointly discussed every technical decision, assumption, and tradeoff. 
 

This open, transparent collaboration enabled strong alignment, constructive pushback, and steady progress toward a futureproof solution.

The impact we made

The project established a solid foundation for long‑term independence and scalable manufacturing, supporting future system growth.

Facing Similar challenges?

PDM supports high‑tech OEMs in engineering modular, scalable, and service‑friendly system designs.

OUR APPROACH in action 

We approached the project as a true co-development partnership, working as one integrated engineering team and taking shared responsibility for technical decisions from concept to validation.  
 
  • One integrated engineering team:

PDM engineers were embedded in the customer’s development organization, operating as a single project team with shared ownership of progress, risk, and technical outcomes. 

  • Early prototyping and validation:

Key concepts were prototyped and validated early in the process to verify feasibility, reduce downstream risk, and support informed architectural decisions.

  • Structured concept reviews:

Design choices were evaluated through structured reviews, balancing performance, cost, and system complexity while keeping long-term maintainability in focus. 

  • Clear subsystem ownership and leadership:

Subsystem responsibilities were clearly defined, enabling decisive engineering leadership and fast resolution of technical trade-offs.

  • Open technical challenge and benchmarking:

Design assumptions were actively challenged using benchmarking and industry standards, ensuring decisions were technically sound and well-substantiated.

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Design & Engineering

We help manufacturers accelerate complex product development through modular design, scalable architectures, and engineering excellence from concept to integration.