Surprising Impacts when Designing a Product For Manufacture

Design for manufacture (DFM) is not just about injection moulding  

I’ve seen too many beautiful products end up in the trash because the entrepreneur can’t afford to turn the amazing design into a business. In the beginning its easy to get carried away designing the best of the best. However, your reality and budget doesn’t allow for that.

Design For Manufacture starts when your idea is born.

Number 1 - The money, get your product business off the ground 

Taking a physical product to market is expensive and you’ll need cash. Like most of us, I’m sure you have a budget. If you don’t, better think of one, it will come in handy. You’ll need money for:

1. Designing the product,
2. Building the brand,
3. Prototyping,
4. Production,
5. Website design,
6. Marketing,
7. Salaries,
8. and many more businessy things.

Without a total budget, you can easily spend all your money on the design and have nothing left for everything else. Leaving you with an empty bank, a cool prototype, and no money for production or a website.

Fun Fact: Product design fees are the cheapest part of taking a product to market

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Number 2 - Prioritise your project goals by designing for the right manufacture techniques

Depending on the depth of your pockets and how much time you have. It’s good to prove your idea as fast as possible. Not just with your potential customers, but to you too. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt knowing if strangers would buy your product?

Validate your idea in sensible development phases:

Phase 1, Talk to strangers about your idea – they love it! Yes!

Phase 2, Create a digital concept – I got some interest, I’m feeling confident let’s make a prototype.

Phase 3, Start prototyping and testing - The prototype works, people love using it! Let’s make millions!

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Design your product for the manufacturing method necessary at the time. Use each phase to gain confidence in your product, without spending unnecessary money on unnecessary manufacture techniques.

Check this blog for early validation of a product

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Test the functionality of your idea

Worry about aesthetics later...

Let’s imagine you are designing a sensor for ladders,

That sensor tells someone when the ladder is off balance and could fall. The sensor can prewarn the user before they get too disorientated and fall off (this is a made-up idea).

Let’s look at three potential Proof of Concept (PoC) phases and how that relates to design for manufacture:

Proof of concept 1 - Prove the technology/idea

The beginning - design for results

1. Design and prototype the electronics using OTS components
2. Put the electronics into enclosure you can buy off the shelf (OTS)
3. Test the unit on a ladder

In this example, you spend your money on a proving the idea, and less on designing the perfect electronics and enclosure. Wasting little money on things that don’t matter… Yet

Custom = Expensive

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Proof of Concept 2 - Prove the idea to customers

Now that you know the idea works. Spend some money thinking about production.

1. Use the same electronic design
2. Create a custom designed enclosure for 3D printing
3. Create 20 units to test with customers.

You haven’t wasted time and energy designing an enclosure for injection moulding. You’ve used 3D printing. Now you can test how the product attaches to the ladder in a custom way.  

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Proof of Concept 3 – Sell the product

You have now proved the idea as well as the functionality, time to optimise for production.

1. Redesign the electronics if necessary.
2. Turn the enclosure into an injection moulded design.
3. Create 1000’s units to sell to customers.

All these phases allow you to spend the money on what is necessary at the time. If the technology doesn’t work. Then you can stop at PoC 1. If the users don’t find it necessary, abandon the project in PoC 2. It’s about designing for the outcome so you don’t waste energy.

Of course you can skip straight to the end if you love the idea so much you want to build it no matter what. The choice is yours.

Design for the appropriate method of manufacture for the phase you're in.   

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Last but not least...

The digital way. Test your ideas without DFM.

There are times when you want to test your idea without investing much money. A digital design can represent your idea with little design for manufacture going into the design.

It is risky if you create something completely unmanufacturable. But that is something you have to figure per project.

Imagine selling the product and then having to change it completely when you get to production. Or it is not even a feasible product to produce? What are your customers going to think?   

The choice is always yours...

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Signing off, three things:

1. Know your TOTAL budget and understand what you can spend on developing your idea.
2. Break up your development plan into key deliverables that can prove something at each stage. Gain confidence at each step.
3. Focus on designing the appropriate level of quality for the stage you are in.