Sometimes, a customer will call PUI Audio about a product not working to spec, but will be unable to share details about the design, as the product has not been officially announced.

In cases like this, we begin with a top-to-bottom production audit: from raw material procurement to delivery, to the customer’s site. In this case, PUI Audio’s engineers from Ohio traveled to Korea, to China, back to Korea, to California, and finally to the assembly location in Mexico.

Only once we were allowed into the actual facility where the customer’s product was being assembled, but we were still able to identify that their design was not providing the specified start voltage required (an oversight by their electrical engineers). The customer quickly resolved this with a software update and went on to launch a very successful product which led the smartphone industry for several years.