BUILD TO PRINT

General Digital Corporation (GDC) is located in East Hartford, Connecticut—a hotbed of innovation in the aerospace, medical, and military industries. Having recently outgrown our previous property, on June 1, 2020, GDC relocated into a state-of-the-art 48,000 sq. ft. environmentally-controlled manufacturing facility.

Our manufacturing center controls ambient conditions such as temperature and humidity and provides high levels of visual acuity through LED lighting. The center maintains full ESD control compliance using humidity control, grounded workstations, and ESD matting.

Additionally, the center has a Class10 clean room and Class 100 laminar flow benches. The surrounding area is available for expansion under increased clean room demand.

GDC has experience with large production runs (several thousand units per year). We are continually incorporating practices that allow us to ramp up our production for large, sometimes cyclical contracts, while at the same time satisfying the expectations and needs of our other customers. After prototype runs are approved, our new facility can be reconfigured for dedicated high-throughput production runs.

GDC offers our partners the engineering, manufacturing, and logistical support to take their product requirements from concept and design to tangible products with performance and quality that meet or exceed expectation, every time.

Another benefit of our facility is our robust confidence testing capability. While the majority of product that leaves our facility isn’t formally certified, sometimes it is required by the end user. When a system does require formal certification, we don’t just send your product off to a third-party for results—we typically have representative on-site to support the product through every step of the process. We’ve spent countless hours supporting and observing our products being tested at certification houses, giving us valuable insight into the design solutions that successfully pass and providing us with knowledge that can be leveraged when building subsequent iterations.

It’s also given us insight into the capital equipment required to perform these tests. We’ve integrated many of the testing processes we’ve witnessed into our own quality management system, which allows us to test products as needed, ensuring that they will work flawlessly at the user’s command.

Our capabilities include:

• Altitude & Pressure testing in our vacuum chamber for MIL-STD-810 and DO-160 compliance
• Vibration Testing with our electro-dynamic shaker for MIL-STD-810 compliance
• ESS (Temperature and Humidity) testing with our Thermotron Oven
• IP/NEMA Ratings (Sealed) with our Dunk Tank & Hose
• Electromagnetic Interference Testing in our Shielded EMI Lab
• Photometric Testing in our in-house optics lab

GDC, a 3-Time Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award Winner, ensures that all products are produced to the highest quality standards. Our Quality Management System covers all aspects of design through manufacture and test, to ensure we meet and exceed our customer’s expectations. General Digital’s Quality Management System is certified to AS9100D and ISO 9001:2015.

Our design process includes all customer requirements for design verification and validation. Prototypes and testing plans are established to ensure all design parameters are validated. First article units are provided as required, along with all applicable test data and/or inspection results. Engineering Change Notice (ECN) processes and controls are in place to document any changes made once the product is validated and or approved.

All customer orders are entered into our MRP system. The Bill of Materials (BOM) configuration is maintained in the system in the form of a Method of Manufacture (MOM). The MOM includes all the components and the operations (manufacturing steps, inspection, and test points, etc.) required for their assembly. The MOM is used to create a production job in the system, ensuring all operations and materials are identified. Job travelers are generated directly from the MRP system.

Any non-conformance encountered in the production process is entered into the system and tracked through to resolution. Statistics are maintained on defects, RMA’s and DMR’s within the system. In addition, 100% of value-add products manufactured by GDC are final tested by our IPC-A-610 certified inspectors prior to shipment.

GDC’s Quality Assurance team uses several effective tools to assure on-time delivery of quality products from its suppliers. We maintain good communication through direct channels and make supplier surveys or facility audits whenever possible. We research objective third party quality certifications, supplier capabilities and history where available.

We partner with and continuously monitor the performance of our approved suppliers to catch product defects before they arise. When a corrective action request is issued, we switch over to 100% verification levels and provide additional feedback to get them back on track whenever possible. If performance issues are not resolved, we gear up our second source and work to qualify a new supplier.

Only our approved suppliers are entered into our MRP system. The system also maintains real-time statistics on supplier performance for ongoing evaluation of the supplier and aids in managing the quality control of the components of our product.

Program risk mitigation is accomplished by the program manager and the program core team. The program teams meet regularly to discuss possible risks and their impacts, and then implement preventative countermeasures to mitigate those risks. This process is repeated as necessary during the program’s cycle.

The risks associated with material lead time and delivery are carefully considered. GDC’s logistical efforts often include a mutually agreed inventory stocking level for long lead items in support of anticipated production needs.

GDC employs a diverse team of production engineers including IPC J-STD-001-certified soldering technicians, optical bonding technicians, assemblers, logistical specialists, and other experts to ensure your product is built right.

Our team boasts a low turnover rate—a testament to our quality work environment—which ensures that every hand that touches your product has the experience and qualifications necessary to build your product right. 100% of our employees are U.S. citizens, ensuring compliance with international trade regulations.

For all major contracts, we establish a Program Manager or Project Lead to maintain control and visibility of the program and provide you with a current, complete, and accurate schedule and status of the program. We also employ a stringent documentation system that ensures proper configuration management and revision control—meaning that just because critical components may go end-of-life, your program won’t.

With all of these unrivaled value-add services and capabilities under one roof, General Digital stands positioned to custom manufacture your product to the strictest requirements. After all, if our processes have been good enough for the military and Fortune 500 companies in every industry over the past 50 years, we’re confident that you’ll find a perfect partner in us, too.

Call us today to discuss how we can serve your needs.