Duel Systems

Customer Service

Duel believes in building long-term relationships with our customers by providing complete customer service and support. We offer personalized customer service to all of our customers and potential customers by providing each company with their own Customer Service Representative. This representative will provide support from the engineering and design stage, through manufacturing, and into the ongoing service and support phases. Your representative will initially process all of your engineering/design requests. Once this phase is complete, support will move on to information requests for quotes, tooling timelines, and then into the final stages of commercial ordering and ongoing service and support.

Design Phase, Design Partners:

• Industrial Design: The product should be aesthetically pleasing, as well as functional.
• Human Interface Design: The layout of controls, I/O and displays can make the difference between an ordinary product and an outstanding, easy-to-use design.
• Engineered Packages: The design of the package should not be separated from the underlying design of the product itself but should be an integral part of the engineered package.
• Interconnect Design: The various internal modules must be interconnected in a manner consistent with the desired performance of the final product. The elimination of conventional connectors can reduce costs, facilitate production, and increase reliability.
• RF Design and Testing: A packaging designer must understand what influences antenna operation, and what RF shielding may be necessary for the rest of the system. The right packaging can ensure optimum antenna performance while providing a package that will meet FCC and emissions testing.
• Materials: The optimum selection of materials, as well as a broad knowledge of the characteristics and compatibility of plastics, metals, and their processing enhances a design while reducing production complexities and costs.
• Customer reviews product and process with Duel Engineering team to "Negotiate" and cooperate until the final design is achieved and agreed to by all.

Tooling/Prototype/Pre-Production Phase:

• Initial tooling and pre-production schedule is established to conform to customer's requirements. There are many options available for initial parts from SLA to "soft tooling".
• Prototyping: Fast turnaround is an integral part of the design process and Duel excels in this area through use of state-of-the-art modeling software, stereo lithography and a variety of fast machining and unique tooling options.
• Real-World Manufacturing Experience: Duel knows manufacturing and how to design products with built-in quality and manufacturability. We also know what contributes to final product quality and ease of assembly when the product moves to a Contract Manufacturer.
• We use the latest PRO-E 3-D modeling software.
• Mold flow analysis software is used when necessary.
• Offer local support and interface for all molds, dies and part made in the US or overseas. This process is completely transparent to Duel's customers.
• All tools are fully production qualified prior to the move to manufacturing location.
• Extensive experience in transferring tooling to various manufacturing locations allows us to provide quick and accurate scheduling for tool transfer.  Transfer of tooling and requalification can occur from 2 to 6 weeks.

Manufacturing, Service and Ongoing Support:

• Methode provides a knowledgeable partner to provide, quality, cost-competitive products anywhere in the world. This includes locations in North America (including Mexico), China and Europe. All locations are ISO certified and most are QSA certified.
• Method's factories are self owned and provide state-of- the art manufacturing processes.
• Method's factories provide state-of- the art quality, purchasing and logistics systems.
• Ongoing application engineering support is also available in order to deal with any production issues that may arise. This support can usually be locally based in order to make the support timely and effective.

Methode and Duel Systems offer "One Stop Shopping" for product design, prototypes, tooling, and manufacture. The innovative electronic packaging designs Duel Systems produces are true state-of-the-art packaging technology and are supported over a worldwide customer base.