MikroTik’s Offices Producing the Designs and Prototypes
Starting a product at MikroTik involves a proces of going from an idea to a prototype.
First, an idea needs to get vetted. Ideas for products need to get costed at a high-level to see if they can be brought to market in target pricing bands. This is the stage which is like “What if we built a 4-port 100GbE switch?” Or “what if we built a low cost router that had these ports?” MikroTik needs to see if the chipsets are out there at the right price points to make product development worthwhile.
The next step is that the product gets designed. We got to see several products being designed. One small challenge with this was that we saw a lot of future products. One in particular we are going to show soon on STH, and it is extremely exciting for those building small-scale desktop AI clusters.
After the design phase, the product needs to be prototyped. Depending on the product, that can take different forms. MikroTik has shelves of component reels leading to a prototyping area. There, MikroTik can buld very low volume prototypes on-site, saving time versus sending everything out to contract manufacturers.
Another benefit of this being onsite is that during a product’s lifecycle, often components run into supply shortages, or need second suppliers. This prototyping facility can also be used to try and qualify replacement parts. To folks in the electronics industry, this is a very normal process. To some outside of the electronics industry, they have no idea that this even happens.
After the prototypes are built, the next step is getting the platforms online. Firmware and software needs to be developed so that new platforms can integrate into MikroTik’s software ecosystem like RouterOS.
Another process that needs to happen is product testing. MikroTik has tons of different testing platforms. Those include a room filled of RF testing chambers. Since MikroTik makes not just WiFi-based products, but also LTE/ 5G products, the local service provider and MikroTik have a specific network setup for testing those WWAN products.
Beyond that, there are various robotic testing setups. MikroTik actually has a team that makes robotic testing rigs that are later placed on the manufacturing floors. Since the company is making custom hardware, they need to make sure all of the components down to the blinking LEDs are working.
There are test setups for reliability testing, software testing, and more. Once the prototypes are tested and ready for manufacturing, a small batch is sent to a contract manufacturer.
The contract manufacturer’s output is then tested to ensure that the line is operating properly. Any necessary adjustments can happen before full volume manufacturing.
On the subject of volume manufacturing, we were able to visit one of MikroTik’s contract manufacturers in Latvia.
Cool article, I did not know this, appreciate it! I bought some MikroTik Equipment based on your recommendations, never had a problem, but the IT departement was not happy, so I had to replace it with Cisco.
Really exiting to see all the steps an such detail, really great to have you guys take us there! I am based in Sweden so pretty close by and I try to purchase MikroTik whenever there is a good product fit.
Fantastic – this is such a great video I’m blown away by the effort and thorough content. Great job showing us this popular but little known company. Really awesome.
Stellar video, and I don’t normally watch your videos
Great post; I had no idea about this. I followed your advice and purchased MikroTik equipment; it worked fine for the most part, but the IT department was unhappy, so I had to switch to Cisco.