ATL Technology

We used ATL to make us a handswitch cable and a connection cable. We already had a manufacturer making these but was looking for a cheaper supplier. I was not the lead engineer on the project but I heavily involved.

Even though ATL is based in the USA, for our project, most of our work and communications was done with their group in China. From the initial design drawings to the delivered prototypes, the process was long and lots of corrections needed to be done.

I think the real kicker for me was that key feature on the connector was suppose to be pad printed black and the samples that we got looked like it was just colored with a marker or something else that was not pad printed. No matter how it was done, it rubbed off. Later samples rectified the situation but shouldn't have happened in the first place or at least just say, we haven't had time to set up the pad printing so just going to do a temp fix for now. Will more samples to you shortly.

Strengths: Hmm. this is a hard one. Maybe they are a bit cheaper than some of their competition.

Needs to improve: Communication was lacking. Didn't follow through on timelines and didn't communicate that they would miss them until we asked where was the parts.

Seek other vendors that can supply you the services

Strengths: Team with good communication skills

Needs to improve: 1. ATL unable to meet their commitments. It takes ATL long time before they really understand the “Voice of Customer”. 2. ATL persistently emphasizes Quantity and NOT Quality. 3. No technical know-how on how to write, manage, and organize manufacturing and quality documents for a medical device company. No thorough review of documents prior to sending these to customers. 4. Meeting minutes never provided to customers unless requested many times. No follow-up from ATL to ensure all the action items are completed and closed. 5. ATL promises beyond their potential and capabilities. 6. Multiple project managers acting on the project. Assigned Project manager not directly controlling the project or providing the requested information. Request being deferred to other members that slows down the feedback process. 7. Flow of information and feedback process too slow. 8. ATL supply chain too slow. It took us almost 5 weeks (in some cases even more) to get required samples.