Man in blue, working a top of plane wing performing maintenance Man in blue, working a top of plane wing performing maintenance

Take your product from idea to real-world impact.

Integrated design, engineering and manufacturing support to realize your most visionary products.

When you’re developing a highly complex product, you need a partner you can trust. For more than four decades, Plexus has helped some of the world’s most respected companies take their products from the first seed of an idea all the way to a leader in the market. Our customers trust us because we do what we say—and we come through, even when others can’t.

Engage with Plexus anywhere along your product development lifecycle. When you do, you’ll get a global partner over 19,000-strong, working as an extension of your own team. Our focus is to fully understand your needs, from the complexities of sourcing, to technical engineering, to the cost demands of your industry. Whether we’re engineering a solution, figuring out complex manufacturing, or guiding your idea all the way through—you’ll always get big-picture thinking and transparency like you’ve never seen in this industry. You’ll tap into the creativity, determination and expertise that has given Plexus a reputation as a leader in complex product development. But most of all, you’ll get our hearts and minds, dedicated to making your idea a reality.

Design and Development
Supply Chain Solutions
New Product Introduction
Manufacturing
Sustaining Services

Design and Development

Innovative solutions for your most complex product challenges.

At Plexus, we’re problem solvers. We thrive on finding answers to highly complex engineering challenges. In fact, we’ve built a reputation for consistently coming through with innovative design and engineering solutions, even when others can’t.

Tap into the creative expertise of our global team of engineers.

When you work with Plexus for product design and development, you’re adding a global team of more than 500 engineering experts to your organization. A team that’s truly collaborative across the globe, leveraging the same tools and process throughout all of our design centers worldwide. Every one of those team members is focused on how your product meets the needs of your customers. We don’t succeed unless you do. Which is why we take the time to understand your business goals and “must haves” to ensure alignment with your team throughout the project.
 
Our entire product realization process integrates everything we do. Which means our teams are made up of engineering, manufacturing and supply chain experts from the beginning — making certain we deliver a solution that will result in a quality product that gets to market on time, at the right price.

Design and Development Capabilities

  • User-Centered Design (UCD)
  • Mechanical engineering
  • Electrical engineering
  • Software engineering
  • Quality and compliance engineering
  • Project management

User-Centered Design: Bridging the gap from vision to reality.

Develop meaningful product solutions that meet user needs, deliver your brand promise and are designed to be manufactured. The Plexus User-Centered Design team applies research, strategy and design to create smart product solutions and better experiences for users.

 
Meet your Design and Development team

Brian Ballweg

Senior Principal Engineer

Brian has nearly 25 years of experience with Plexus leading product development projects in all of our market sectors. He focuses on complex mechatronic systems, robotics and automated manufacturing. In fact, Brian developed our mechanical design process and defined robotics and automation as key Plexus capabilities. Brian is a true leader, who enjoys mentoring our teams to continually improve our service for customers.

Learn more about Design and Development

Supply Chain Solutions

Personalized success delivered through innovative, efficient and scalable solutions.

Everything we do is driven by you. From the start of your engagement with Plexus, you can expect a level of collaboration and transparency you won’t get anywhere else. We’re known for embracing your complex needs and finding creative ways to manage your entire supply chain.
 

Experienced in global supply chain complexity.

In an ever connected and competitive economy, delivering optimal supply chain solutions is about much more than simply getting your product where it needs to be on time. It’s about understanding your total supply chain through product launch and beyond. It means having the ability to proactively identify and mitigate risks to ensure your business objectives are met. We’ll work closely with you to design and implement a global supply chain solution that’s as flexible and scalable as you need it to be.

When you partner with Plexus, you can be sure your product is in capable hands. With decades of experience and a proven track record in complex supply chain problem-solving, we’ve developed proprietary design, analysis and simulation tools that instill confidence in our ability to get your product to market on time. And we continue to invest in our teams and resources to take on your emerging supply chain needs.

Supply Chain Capabilities

  • Design for supply chain
  • Innovative sourcing
  • Supply chain risk management
  • Actionable analytics
  • Managing global, complex supply chains

New Product Introduction

Seamless product delivery, from design to manufacturing to the market.

When you’re introducing a new product, you need to move quickly. And you can’t afford to cut corners — because waiting around and driving up costs to fix mistakes or defects can mean losing the opportunity you were trying to seize. With Plexus, you’ll get a team that’s dedicated to decreasing your time to market. That means sourcing materials quickly, and employing our tools, processes and experience to identify and avoid any issues that could delay your launch. We have a long history of making sure we get the product right the first time. Because getting it right is how you’ll get to market with greater speed, without compromising quality.

Accelerating your time to market with a full stream of integrated NPI services.

When you partner with Plexus for New Product Introduction, we’ll be your unfair advantage. You’ll get to market faster, because your project team is integrated from initial Design and Development through test, rapid prototyping and Manufacturing. Collaboration is open and happens from the beginning, to ensure that we’re catching any problems early on. Our engineering team is engaged at every step, finding the smartest solutions for every phase, and making sure you’ll have no surprises or costly delays. And our dedicated transition team will be there the whole time, to shepherd your product all the way through the process. This is next-level NPI — and it’s how we help you reduce risk, ensure quality, and get to market quickly at a lower overall cost.
 

New Product Introduction Capabilities

  • Design for excellence (DFX)
  • Test engineering
  • Rapid prototyping
  • Transition management

Design for Excellence (DFX)

Product optimization for cost, test, manufacturing and supply chain needs across all phases of design and development. Design for excellence eliminates surprises in new product introduction — and it can be the difference between launching on time and missing a market opportunity entirely.

Test Engineering

Specialized design of test solutions from the earliest stages to ensure zero defects, faster time to market and lower cost. Superior test engineering is key to giving you confidence in a flawless launch, every time.

Rapid Prototyping

Accelerating time to market by finding and fixing anything that could cause delays in manufacturing. Rapid prototyping is fully aligned with our whole process — and it’s one way we make sure to get your product right the first time.

Transition Management

Dedicated, expert guidance to take your product seamlessly from Design and Development into Manufacturing. Highly trained transition managers work closely with you to remove risk by making sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Meet your New Product Introduction team

Elaine Walker

Prototype Center Manager

Elaine brings more than 30 years of experience in the EMS industry to her role managing our dedicated rapid prototyping facility in Livingston, Scotland. She is a true collaborator, who enjoys working in close partnership with our customers. Together with her team, Elaine takes great pride in delivering the highest-quality prototypes to help our customers get to market faster.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing your product is not something we take lightly.

When you partner with Plexus as your product manufacturing solutions provider, we understand that you’re putting a lot of trust in us. Trust to solve your most complex manufacturing and supply chain challenges. Trust to do what we say we’ll do, with zero defects. Trust to understand just how important your product will be in the lives of those who will use it. That’s why we’ve built our process around providing you the most innovative and dependable manufacturing solutions available.

Advanced global resources to bring highly complex products to life.

Choosing Plexus to manufacture your product means you’re getting a true partner. We’ll take the time to understand your goals and work as an extension of your own team to find the smartest solution for your product. You’ll see an approach to manufacturing that focuses on innovation, continuous improvement and the flexibility to tailor our services to your exact needs — even if that means building out our capabilities to meet them. And you’ll benefit from a process that’s integrated with engineering, supply chain and aftermarket services to ensure the longevity of your product.

Meet your Manufacturing team

David Strachan

Global Director of Transition Management

Dave brings more than 20 years of international EMS experience to the Plexus team. He thrives on collaborating with customers, and specializes in Lean and Six Sigma Continuous Improvement activities. Located in Europe, Dave leads our global team of program and project management professionals to ensure smooth transitions between all Plexus functions, global locations and phases of a project.

Sustaining Services

Extend product life, enhance your customer experience and promote a more sustainable future.

When you partner with our Sustaining Services team you'll benefit from a proactive approach to service that’s integrated across every aspect of product design, development and manufacturing—from Design for Sustainability, to reverse logistics, repair and refurbishment, parts recovery, recycling and more. You'll be able to sustain your products across the full lifecycle, designing serviceability and sustainability into your product from the beginning, proactively extending product life and building long-term value for your brand.

Learn More