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Is Your Design Ready? Manufacturing Readiness Checklist

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There is a world of difference between making ten units versus 100,000 units/month. The ability to bring a product from design to production efficiently and effectively is crucial for companies striving to remain competitive. This blog post explores the importance of manufacturing readiness and highlights key strategies to achieve it. 

Is Your Design Ready? 

Determining the readiness of a product design for production involves several key considerations. Here is our checklist to evaluate to assess the readiness of your product design: 

Video transcript available at https://www.fusiondesigninc.com/blog/2020/2/17/where-does-design-begin

Design and Specifications 

  • Is your product specification (MRD and PRD) complete and up-to-date?  

  • Has the design been built, tested, updated and tested again.  

  • Does the design and the functional testing meet the design requirements set forth in the PRD? 

  • Are all part drawings and schematics complete and ready for production? 

  • Is the bill of materials (BOM) complete and fully costed? 

  • Do all of the OTS parts have multiple sources? If not, should they? 

  • Are standard components specifications available for all off-the-shelf parts? 

  • Are any of the OTS parts near end of life? 

  • Are the custom parts designed for the optimal manufacturing process? 

  • Are specifications and drawings available for all custom parts? 

  • Has proper tolerancing been done for both the manufacturing process and the assembly process to follow? 

  • Have all parts been assigned part numbers? 

  • Does an approved-vendor list exist and does your design leverage it properly? 

  • What regulatory and safety requirements do you need to meet? Do the OTS parts meet regulatory requirements on their own? Does the overall assembly comply.  

  • Have safety, compliance, and packaging tests been performed and passed? 

Is Your Process Ready? 

Along with product documentation, many processes need to be transferred to manufacturing to ramp up production. These usually include manufacturing and inspection instructions, training material, testing procedures, fixtures, and “known” good units to validate testing. Out-of-date process documentation and missing training records are the most common problems when transferring products.  

Testing 

  • For projected volumes, do you need manual, semi-automated or fully automated testing? Does your manufacturing partner have the right equipment and ability? 

  • Do you have proven testing procedures?  

  • Does your test time align with your manufacturing task time? Will single testers do the job or do you need parallel systems? 

  • How many known good reference product samples are needed?  

  • What regulatory and safety requirements do you need to meet? Has your product been tested and approved? 

Assembly process 

  • How many devices will be produced and according to what schedule? 

  • Are complete assembly procedures available? 

  • Are assembly fixtures required? If so, what are they and how many are needed to meet build rates? 

  • Are there any design modifications required for efficient manufacturing? 

  • Is there an onsite champion who will own and manage your assembly process? 

  • What materials and components need incoming inspection procedures and processes? 

  • Can low volume assembly be done locally and moved to lower cost locations later? This allows the scaling for a mature process vs a new less mature one.  

Processes may need to be reviewed when scaling from small quantities to very large quantities. As the production volume increases, rethinking jigs, hand tools, and fixtures becomes necessary to ensure efficiency and maintain quality standards. In Automation Friendly Design, Fusion has tips for optimizing the design for production efficiency.  

Manufacturing readiness encompasses a range of factors, including detailed and comprehensive design, process optimization, supply chain management, quality assurance, and capacity planning. See our Manufacturing Transfer Guide.

Conclusion 

Manufacturing readiness encompasses a range of factors, including process optimization, supply chain management, quality assurance, and capacity planning. It involves evaluating and addressing various aspects of the manufacturing process to ensure a smooth transition from product development to full-scale production. Achieving manufacturing readiness is vital to minimize risks, avoid costly delays, optimize operational efficiency, and deliver high-quality products consistently. 

Related Content 

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MD&M 2020

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Today, it is all about being connected and staying connected. IoT and wearable devices are revolutionizing the industrial, automotive, robotics, and medical fields.

Video below is Mark Brinkerhoff’s introduction.

Mark Brinkerhoff - President of Fusion Design

In the video below, Mark talks about technology trends, drivers, and influencers for IoT and wearable development from a mechanical engineer's point of view.

Mark Brinkerhoff discusses the mega trends shaping the world.

Mark discusses the impact and what these trends mean for wearable devices.

Mark Brinkerhoff discusses the impact and what these trends mean for wearable devices

In the video below, Mark discusses the development processes.

Fusion development processes

Mark shares technology trends he saw at CES 2020.

New technology at CES 2020

In the following video, Mark discusses the common wearable design challenges including device protection, adhesives options, and thermal management.

wearable design challenges

Detailed information about the interesting wearable Mark found at CES 2020.

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Are You Ready to Start Product Development?

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Are you ready to start your product development? 

Below is an edited transcript of the video. 

Are you ready to start your product development? 

Typically, people come in with an idea, and often, they haven't been able to do enough of their homework ahead of time before requesting our services. This is a short video to describe some of the things worth doing right away once you have an idea. 

Look in the marketplace

So, let's say you've dreamed up an idea about the next greatest thing. It doesn't matter what it is, but you're pretty sure it's an opportunity. Well, then, what I do is switch hats from an inventor to a contrarian. I look at the marketplace. I try to find the device, idea, or design I had dreamed up. And I look everywhere. I look in the patent database, in the US patent database, uspto.gov. I look on Amazon. I look in specialty stores. I look in magazines. I look all over the place for things, and I really try hard to find them. And if I still need to find it and think it's a valuable idea, then I consider doing a provisional patent on the idea because nothing's out there.

And once I have the provisional patent applied for, and there are other videos we'll show to describe this, it allows me to talk to the world about my idea and see if it's a valuable solution.  Of course a valuable solution can be anything. Usually, it's something that solves a problem that someone has or makes life easier in some way, or is extremely entertaining. And there are many other versions, but these are the ones I see mostly.

Get trusted feedback on your idea

So once you've got your provisional patent in order, then you can ask your friends and family if the idea is one of significance, is it valuable? Is it something they'd actually pay for? I think that's great with friends and family initially, but then you find out that they'll often say what you want to hear. So you have to find objective people who you trust their opinion, they're in need of the potential idea that you've created, and ask them, honestly, would this be something they'd buy if they saw it on the market. Find out what other things cost in that space. Put all that together, and once you've done that, then it's worth it the next step.

We can help answer development questions

Often, people come with that information to us as well. And they are usually more prepared, and they can get more out of a visit here. We'll give honest opinions about the manufacturability and feasibility. We are not marketing experts, so we can't offer as much input on the marketability. With that information, you'll have your best experience with us, and we'll understand your needs much more quickly, and you'll get answers to your initial development questions, and or costs, and or schedules right away.