When a subassembly reaches the qualification phase after months of development, you'd naturally expect the hardest part to be behind you. Yet this is often the stage where new delays emerge, and not necessarily for technical reasons.
The cause usually lies in how the project is structured: the enclosure comes from one supplier, the connectors from another, the cabling from a third, and the test laboratory sees the assembly for the first time when it arrives. It has no visibility into the design choices, the accepted trade-offs, or the available margins.
And that's precisely where fragmentation makes itself felt when a test fails. The report goes back up the chain, but none of the suppliers involved has a complete system-level view to propose a meaningful fix. The engineer becomes a coordinator by default, juggling between parties who don't know each other and each of whom holds only a piece of the picture.
What These Back-and-Forths Actually Cost
The consequences are rarely visible in an initial budget. They show up later, as weeks of delay, redesign work that was supposed to be frozen, and coordination meetings that pile up without anyone having the full system picture.
On a critical programme, every additional iteration between design and qualification has a direct impact on the schedule. And the more suppliers are involved, the more those iterations multiply.
A Different Approach: Design and Qualify with a Single Partner
The idea is simple: when the partner who designs the equipped enclosure is also the one who tests it, a problem detected during vibration, shock, or climatic testing can be analysed the same day by the team that designed the product. We save valuable time: no intermediate report sent to a third party, no week-long wait for feedback.
The fix is handled directly, with full knowledge of the design in mind.
Because Nicomatic masters connector design, cabling, electronics, mechanical design, and qualification testing, we are able to deliver complete equipped enclosures without you having to coordinate multiple suppliers. It's an advantage that makes a real difference whenever scheduling and compliance constraints are tight.
If you are in the design or qualification phase and would like to explore this approach for your project, our teams will be happy to discuss it with you.
The Laboratory Is Not Just a Final-Stage Checkpoint
That's often how it's perceived: the laboratory steps in once everything is designed, to validate or invalidate. But when the laboratory is a fully integrated part of the organisation, it becomes a development tool in its own right.
At Nicomatic, the laboratory performs 90% of the tests required by MIL and EN standards entirely in-house.
Here is what it covers:
- Environmental: climatic chamber from -80°C to +200°C, humidity 0 to 100%, transition at 12°C/min, salt spray.
- Mechanical: vibrations from 10 Hz to 3 kHz (up to 50 g, sine, random, sine-on-random), shocks up to 160 g, continuity interruption detection from one nanosecond, 5 kN universal tensile testing machine.
- Optical: source and power meter (850, 1310, 1550 nm), bit error rate up to 25 Gbps including under vibration and shock.
- High frequency: 4-port VNA from 100 kHz to 50 GHz, reflectometry, eye diagram, Smith chart.
- Electromagnetic simulation (CST): 3D modelling, signal integrity, thermal and mechanical effects, parametric optimisation.
The laboratory does not simply execute test plans. It participates in defining the qualification plan, prepares the tests, conducts multi-expertise testing, analyses the results, and produces the reports.
An Open Laboratory Service, including for Non-Nicomatic Products
One point worth highlighting: the Nicomatic laboratory is also accessible to customers who wish to qualify equipment that was not designed by Nicomatic. The customer submits their request directly, benefits from a single point of contact throughout the project, and the test plan is fully customisable.
For companies that do not have their own test equipment, or that are looking for a responsive partner with short lead times and a dedicated team, this is an interesting option.
To find out more about our testing capabilities and discuss your project, visit our dedicated page.