Turnkey Solutions
We offer a complete turnkey cradle to grave product development and supply service. During the last decade, ICEpower has been developing a still increasing number of Audio Turnkey Products and Custom Designs for all kinds of Rack Amplifiers and Powered Speakers. The goal? Reliable cradle-to-grave services.
Turnkey and Customizations
We offer a full turnkey cradle to grave product development and supply service.
During the last decade, ICEpower has been developing a still increasing number of Audio Turnkey Products and Custom Designs for all kinds of Rack Amplifiers and Powered Speakers.
ICEpower can act as an outsourced product creation partner, taking on projects all the way from product idea through development, certifications, ramp up, and manufacturing of your products.
Our Danish engineering team and wide range of proven amplifier power modules combined with a competitive manufacturing setup in Asia enable us to provide innovative, high-quality products at competitive prices.
Partnering with ICEpower on product creation helps our customers reduce their operational complexity, enabling them to stay focused on what truly matters – customers.
Our broad portfolio of high-quality market-proven amplifier power modules enables us to quickly and cost-effectively develop custom modules, DSP-based speaker backplates, or complete box build products. This can be done either on a turnkey basis where ICEpower develops and manufactures the complete solution, or it can be a joint development, where the customer or a 3rd party develops parts of the design. Our strong Danish engineering team and our competitive sourcing and manufacturing setup in Thailand means we can offer Danish quality engineering combined with Asian cost.
We mainly develop and supply Turnkey and customized solutions within 3 Core Application Segments:
Home Automation
Amplifiers for Home Automation Both analog and digital with all relevant audio software, network, audio over IP (Dante, Milan, etc.)
Commercial Audio
Amplifiers for Commercial, Corporate, and Educational Both analog or digital with all relevant audio software, network (Dante, Milan, etc.), audio over IP, etc.
Pro Audio
Rack amplifiers, solutions for powered speakers for PRO Audio, including both touring and fixed installations.
The majority of ICEpower’s 75 engineers (software, hardware analog / digital, mechanical engineers) are working on specific customer projects, i.e. a full turnkey product and/or specific customizations for an Audio Product. All development takes place at our HQ in Copenhagen, Denmark, although we are little by little adding certain local R&D satellites to accommodate talented engineers at other locations.
The manufacturing usually takes place at our 2 Electronic Manufacturing Suppliers (EMS), SVI and GPV; both located in Thailand app. 50 km out of Bangkok. ICEpower employees are usually present most of the year at our production sites.
Both of our EMS partners are chosen because they can accommodate the high-quality level of the ICEpower Audio Customers. Our outsourced facilities work effectively with sourcing and cost competitiveness, they can do New Product Introductions (NPI) effectively, and they can accommodate the audio industry’s requirement on low volume / high mix. In addition, and importantly they are both focusing on companies very similar to ICEpower and have several Danish employees on location. This eases the communication, the co-operation and liaises partnerships.
Denmark is a ‘hub’ for audio. Power electronics is a core competence. With more than 200 audio companies and several Technical Universities and Engineering Educational Centers in Denmark focusing on software and power electronics for audio, ICEpower could not be better located and positioned for developing electronics for audio. It is an ideal environment for a continuous add-on of more and more talented Audio Engineers to our R&D facilities.
The choice of and partnership with 2 matching manufacturers in Thailand both rooted in our culture – in their own way – bridges the gap between R&D in Denmark and outsourced manufacturing and enables ICEpower to accomplish our Mission,
” Through engineering excellence and close partnering, ICEpower offers customers the highest quality and performance audio products at the best price in the market”
Today ICEpower is a Center of Excellence within power electronics and related products for audio.
Getting (Enough) New Products to The Market on Time
None of our customers can fully accomplish their individual Strategies and Roadmaps for New Product Introductions on a stand-alone basis.
The Audio Industry is characterized by many smaller and mid-sized companies typically with rather limited R&D capabilities. Even the largest audio manufacturers within the ICEpower 3 core application segments – entering relations with multiple outsourced facilities – are unable to really take the position that their capabilities and brand deserve due to inabilities to accomplish their roadmap timely and effectively.
The increasing technological pace means that audio products today are complex. Developing them requires a strong mix of competencies within diverse fields such as analog & digital electronics, power electronics, Digital Signal Processing, Audio Networks, mechanical engineering as well as system understanding. Products can thereby through its development phase from Product Management until Market Introduction easily have 20-30 development and NPI stakeholders – all with their individual competencies, input, and individual opinion.
No Audio companies today can do all of this internally; well, maybe a few – but if deciding to do so with one specific product, the price to be paid is usually a lower total number of new SKUs to the market than is needed to stay competitive and accomplish growth targets. Not to mention the end customer’s expectations for new products.
The CMs (EMS, JDM, ODM) are unable to follow the needs of the Audio Industry leaders in terms of New Product Introductions. The typical CM is not located in areas with the necessary access to Audio Software, Audio Power Electronics competencies, and general audio skills. Further, the CM does not possess up-to-date Project Management and Customer communication skills required by the Leaders of the Audio Industry.
These days, Project Management is a professional skill obtained by education with constant adoption of the newest skills and techniques, and on-the-job training.
ICEpower strives to be the answer to all of that.
Quality of Products
New customers often turn to ICEpower due to poor experiences dealing directly with a Contract Manufacturer. When dealing with ICEpower – ICEpower takes responsibility for the quality. ICEpower manages and guarantees quality. Period.
If there is one heritage from the past 20 years ICEpower story that we put forward as the most important – number 1: It is quality above all. That is how we have organized our R&D-set-up, manufacturing, and supply chain.
It starts with the design. Some designs are more likely not to fail than others. Having developed many platforms, ICEpower typically has more design experience within our focus areas than our customers and the CM.
ICEpower engineers also have a much greater understanding of all the components used on your products than any CM. ICEpower only designs with and sources quality components. We work focused on building an ICEpower relationship, not just with our manufacturing partner but with all of our key component suppliers that are important to your product.
The best we can offer our customers is that ICEpower oversees and takes responsibility for the quality. Any quality matter is handled by skilled ICEpower engineers to structure, systematize and communicate. There are no “teams-meetings with people you barely know on the other side of the world – who did not develop the actual product for you – and with limited communication skills.”
Integrating New Suppliers
Handling suppliers is a growing task among ICEpower’s customers. Many of the ICEpower customers today has a patchwork of suppliers that only employees with decades of employment in the company will be able to explain to newcomers.
Why is that?
The audio industry is a small industry with multiple small-midsized companies all bringing their individual inventions and attitudes to audio to the world of listeners. Over the years all combinations of in-house manufacturing, in-house design and / or development in combinations with external suppliers of the similar offers have been combined – to try to build the optimal set-up seen from an innovation and cost perspective.
ICEpower is the first attempt to build a one-stop supply chain for audio electronics and audio software within 3 application segments.
Protecting Own IP (Value)
A significant concern shared by most companies considering outsourcing product creation is “How do we protect our own IP? How do we ensure our partner does not leak, steal, or misuse our IP?” Indeed, in some parts of the world, respect for IP is highly questionable. ICEpower is rooted in a culture where such issues are taken for granted and documented in contracts. Being born as a tech company in collaboration with the Danish Technical University, IP has always been a core matter.
We understand, value, and respect the IP contributed by our partners and take great care that IP contributed by you brought into a new concept and a new product is your sole property.
ICEpower is also a developer and an innovator itself with many patents for what reason we do not have to rely on innovations from external parties.
Price / Competitiveness
ICEpower was founded and established around a strong competence in Class D amplifier and switch-mode power supply technology. We take all those competencies in this field for granted today.
One of the most important competencies of ICEpower today is our experience, tools, and mindset about cost design. Combining our portfolio of technology platforms and strong sourcing relationships enables us to deliver strong price competitiveness.
For the majority of our customers, we can be more cost-effective than they can be on their own. Also, more cost-effective than a pure CM (EMS, JDM, ODM) can be for you.
Why is that?
The reason is that we have spent 10+ years building a world-class design, development, and sourcing team. Most of our engineers are also sourcing specialists today. We work with your new product/s, both from innovation, design for costs, and sourcing angle from the very start. While others might reuse the same technology repeatedly, ICEpower possesses all the technologies around amplification and power supplies. We have 20 years of platforms to choose between and inspiration for new solutions.
Our experience is that no CM can source better than ICEpower does for our customers. No CM has the expertise and skills within audio electronics that ICEpower has. We are happy to share other customers’ viewpoints of our price/competitiveness skills unless there is conflicting competition.
ICEpower Technology and Platforms
ICEpower has the most extensive, most complete collection of Audio Platforms in the industry (from 1W to 7kW). These mature and market-proven platforms enable us to quickly and cost-effectively develop the optimal solutions for each application.
We have platforms for all power levels relevant to the audio industry. Those platforms are continuously refined improved, and new technologies are added. This means that most audio customers will find already working platforms that fit some of their applications. If this is not the case, the typically somewhat larger audio companies with larger volumes, having longer-term audio products in the market, will decide on a turnkey solution or a customization solution either by ICEpower or in mutual cooperation.
What are you in for? The highest possible continuous output or best short-term peak power? ICEpower is not a “this is how we do it at ICEpower” – we do them all (from 1/1 to 1/8), including all feedback technologies. We also have all diagnostics & monitoring on board. At least those that we settle for with you.
ICEpower can work with your DSP or our own DSP solutions. We do most software for audio – including control based on proprietary protocols or industry standards like OCA, SNMP, etc. We do a lot of AoIP-products every year, e.g., PoE+, Dante, and we are a member of AVNU/Milan – doing an increasing number of AVB/Milan-based products.
The platforms give us a head start as we are not starting from scratch with a blank sheet of paper. We are thereby simply faster to market than our customers and competitors. The more development is done by ICEpower, the faster to market.
This enables us to provide our customers with better performance at a competitive price and a short development time.
From Cradle to Grave
All companies tend to forget the sum of resources that we put into maintaining our products. Consider below. ICEpower manages your product creation from cradle to grave. This means that it is not your resource traveling to Asia to discuss maintenance. It is not your resources that are in the front line when new regulations and policies hit the electronic industry, it is not your resources doing the change of componentry when something goes EOL or otherwise requires changes. You are not facing a CMs’ lack of understanding of the audio market when prices are up for discussion twice a year.
All of this is handled for you – by ICEpower.
This frees up your R&D and operational resources and saves you cost. It reduces your business complexity and enables you to focus on what matters most – your customers and your market understanding.
Project Management and Execution
ICEpower has developed Project Management and Project Execution into a Core Competency. According to many of our customers, it might be the most essential competence today.
Today, ICEpower is a lean and project-focused company. Our employees bring new products to the market (either customer products or products for the general audio market). ICEpower has a clear R&D project focus enabling us to execute projects efficiently and fast.
Our typical project execution is 10-18 months from project kick-off to mass production (depending on complexity).
A project is a long-term and complex engagement. We believe that a win-win partnership mindset, trust, transparency, frequent and transparent communication are crucial to success. We arrange weekly, sometimes bi-weekly, communication with our customers. Customers in the US are primarily evening-meetings at ICEpower, while customers in Asia are typically morning-meetings.
When kicking-off projects with a first-time customer, our entire project team will usually visit your corresponding team to build the mutual understanding and relations important for a smooth design, development, and market introduction process.
At ICEpower we have a Project Management Office (PMO) where were we constantly update project manager skills and strive to find the optimal balance between agility and processes.
Our COO oversees our project management office. He is a skilled and certified specialist in project and portfolio management, a competence developed over decades at schools and on-the-job training.
All our PMs are similarly skilled project management engineers. Over several years, they can turn themselves into professional project managers by a continuous mutual effort from their own and ICEpower’s side involving both external education and on-the-job training under the supervision of colleagues with a more senior project manager profile.
The ICEpower structured stage/gate development model has been developed over 2 decades and is always under construction. Improvements are added regularly by our project management office using a structured approach.
All development processes include several focused design reviews. We are tracking all projects with KPIs and reviewing the outcome. When conducting weekly project meetings with customers, we have full transparency and full disclosure of all issues, estimates, concerns, etc.
Management meets every month for a Resource Management meeting in which all projects and all resources are evaluated and distributed. Modern resource management is both easy and complex today as most employees know which projects they are most suitable for. ICEpower engineers thrive with a significant portion of contributory influence and co-determination. This is a cornerstone when reaching requested levels of innovation, price/competitiveness, and deadlines.
Our Project Managers utilizes several tools during the product creation and product maintenance processes
• Cadence schematic capture and PCB layout
• SolidWorks/ Onshape mechanic’s design
• Arena BOM management system
• Arena Document control
• Azure Software development
• Navision ERP system
Product Cost
Our extensive portfolio of proven platforms enables ICEpower to create concepts based on an 80-90% costed BOM. This means we have a total cost review at the first schematic, before the first layout (including all new components), supported by our cost simulation tools.
All projects have engineers on board capable of careful and cost-effective component selections based on existing parts database, purchasing volumes, prices, component lifecycle, and our and/or our supplier relationships.
We make a costed BOM rollup at every design milestone with current BOM on all subassemblies to ensure all design parts are within target costs. We track all changes to the design requirements to give complete visibility on cost impact towards our customers.
Supply Chain
ICEpower works with SVI and GPV in Bangkok (global #41 and #47) EMS companies. This is a very deliberate decision because both GPV and SVI have a footprint matching ICEpower in several ways.
Geographically and in terms of understanding each other, we are on common grounds. While SVI from the very beginning has been focusing on Danish and Scandinavian smaller and midsized companies, GPV is a Danish listed company. This means that both companies are having several Danish personnel on-site in Bangkok. They understand our requirements and the communication is therefore at an adequate and much higher level than we have experienced elsewhere in the past. Both of our suppliers are having Danish management and we have access to them at a management level round the clock, all year round. A strong and long-term relationship with top management as well as on all levels at our suppliers ensures the right attention to our business and thereby towards our customers.
Furthermore, SVI and GPV are focused on requirements matching electronic products characterized by high mix / low-medium volume. Not only ICEpower but most of – if not the entire – audio industry is characterized by this. Even in a larger perspective, one could say that much of the Northern European electronic development and manufacturing industry is having this mutual characteristic making our local ICEpower understanding of requirements for high mix / low-medium volume a great match for the audio electronic industry.
While working with mid-sized supply partners we have a good pricing power as the volume we purchase on a yearly basis does matter for our suppliers. At the same time, ICEpower does manage and negotiate a larger number of key components directly with our suppliers. This further adds to our supply partnership.
Further, many of our customers also view Thailand as an optimal strategic place for manufacturing due to access to labor (quality, costs, and labor continuity compared to many other places in Asia). Thailand also means that import duties known in other parts of Asia can be avoided.
Want to know more?
If you want to know more about our Turnkey Solutions and the possibilities, don’t hesitate to reach out.
We can’t wait to hear from you.