Meet Anjali Mahajan

Anjali Mahajan holds a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire and currently leads the HBK OEM Sensor design team as Principal Design Engineer. Anjali and her team works with customers to provide customized solutions for their most challenging sensing requirements.

We spoke with Anjali about her experiences, the different phases of the custom sensor design, and how to support OEM product designer.

Read this interview to learn how a group of passionate experts use their expertise and skills to make their products smarter and effective.

Feel free to comment this insightful interview!

Can you turn any part into a sensor or integrate a sensor into any component?

Yes, when a catalog sensor is not an option, we can:

• Strategically modify existing members of a system allowing them to become active sensor

Or:

• Create a high-performance sensor that fits the customers’ equipment with none to minimal modifications to their overall system.

Many industrial applications require a custom solution for harsh conditions. How can you help?

We can design sensors for a wide range of challenging environmental conditions such as high temperature, pressure, and the presence of corrosive fluids. Our expert design engineers consider the environmental conditions right at the design phase and choose coating materials and sensor construction suitable for the application.

Could you explain the process of moving from a prototype (sensor) to full-scale production?

There are many activities that take place when moving from prototype to full scale production. Production validation testing (at customer or at HBK), implementation of high volume production processes including automation, work instructions created, PPAPs compiled and shared with customers when required, PPAP of sub-component suppliers, etc.

How quickly are you able to execute feasibility tests for prototypes?

HBK engineers use FEA to optimize components in the design phase. This reduces the number of physical prototypes and result into development of better products in fastest time possible.

How can a new custom sensor be tested and validated to ensure they work properly?

This is not really an easy thing to answer in email or in generalities. Basically, our goal is test a part as closely as possible to how it is used in the customer’s application. Sometimes they can send us mating parts to test with, but sometimes this is not possible. We can create custom tooling to match the application closely, but this can also be very expensive and take a long time to produce, so it is cheaper and faster to deliver prototypes to the customer without significant testing and then let the customer test the parts and help them interpret the data. Based on the application and sensor design, our engineers can make predictions about how closely our test results can match their application. We use 3 printing whenever that can help. For test fixtures, we may use 3D printing if the loads required can be handled by the materials that we are able to print. Most commonly, we use 3D printing to help with assembly, and less commonly for test fixtures.

Can you fulfill the demands of specific testing and quality procedure requirements?

We abide by the highest international standard and certifications, customer audits, and processes like PAPP approval. As a result, we can assure trustworthy and repeatable processes.

Also, we can develop and execute custom test plans to fulfill our customers’ unique testing requirements.

How do you fulfill high volume requests quickly?

A: We have world class manufacturing facilities and logistics teams in Germany, North America and China to support you with your high volume request. We can move seamlessly into series / volume production. Sensor development and production are closely interconnected: transfers from engineering to production are performed accurately and effectively utilizing our highly experienced teams and global footprint. ?

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Want to know more about our OEM sensor solutions? Click here: https://www.hbkworld.com/en/solutions/applications/oem-custom-sensors