Smoothing The Transition From Design To Manufacture: Best Practices

By Mike Gaul, Group VP Medical, Sparton

In the race to bring innovative products to market, ensuring a seamless transition from design to manufacturing is critical. Yet, in today’s marketplace, design and manufacturing engineers alike are faced with many new challenges.

Supply chain issues like component obsolescence, material availability and shortened lead times are some of the nuances that must be resolved early in the process in order to prevent production headaches later. With today’s speed of innovation, new manufacturing processes or capabilities are required, which demand the specialized knowledge of process engineers. Future product testing requirements must also be considered, with checkpoints for product and validation testing built into the planning process.

How much energy will the product require? How much servicing will it need? Will the product be used in a harsh environment? What regulatory and product safety requirements must be met? These are just a few of the questions that design engineers must answer. As a result, including manufacturing considerations early in the design cycle has become a high-priority objective for companies seeking faster, leaner production.