Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
are readily available for evaluation and review, it's easier for a prospective manufacturer
to understand what you are trying to make and why.
Before you think about manufacturing a product, it's important to understand that, like
you, manufacturers are running a business. Like any business, manufacturing involves a
lot of decision making and tradeoffs. Manufacturers generally seek to offer you a compet-
itive price that gives them the best profit. That's how they make money and stay in busi-
ness. This should sound totally obvious, but hidden in that reality is a warning: beware the
manufacturers that offer impossibly low prices. They are either taking shortcuts that will
cause you problems, or they are not operating a sustainable business and will probably go
out of business before your product sees the light of day.
Figuring out how to run a successful manufacturing business is not the focus here. Fig-
uring out how to successfully get your product manufactured is the point of this chapter.
In a perfect world, you would sit with the manufacturing manager of the factory you've
selected and hash through every step of the production process as decisions are made re-
garding your product. You would review each decision to ensure that your design isn't
compromised. You would be able to instantly consider the best options when the manufac-
turing team hits the inevitable problems as your parts are prepared for production and then
fabricated. In the real world, however, you send some files off to a factory that you've
evaluated and hope for the best. What could really go wrong, after all? We live in an age
where automation is king and designs, whether electrical or mechanical, are represented
by ones and zeroes that can be turned into physical objects, which are perfect copies of
one another.
Avoiding the most common mistakes should be easy in this day and age, yet even ex-
perienced teams will miss things. Even though every project is different, following the
best practices will help you avoid common problems. For example, making sure your
design can be manufactured using widely available materials and techniques is a great
place to start, but your selection of a manufacturer may also play a big role in your suc-
cess. Knowing how to communicate with that manufacturer to hand off materials is im-
portant, as is working with the manufacturer to optimize your design for manufacture and
assembly. Before any parts are made in volume, pilot production and quality testing are
also critical. This chapter gets you started with these topics and then shows some ex-
amples of errors.
