Designing for Resilience: Why Supply Chain Strategy Starts at the CAD File

Design & Supply Chain Series - Blog #1

Finding the right suppliers is one of the most important steps in commercializing your product. Every nuance of your product design will need to be realized correctly and consistently from the product drawings (most likely in CAD files of some sort) into the physical reality. During his “sourcing” exercise, companies tend to focus more on finding trustworthy and reliable manufacturing partners, developing the right business relationships, and negotiation the best business deals. These are all necessary and important elements in sourcing, but companies might not understand they are far from getting their hands clean on the design aspects of their products even in this sourcing stage; as a matter of fact, the product design should be its starting point.

Why do companies want to start their sourcing exercise from looking into their product designs?

Every single element in your product design leads to some sort of consequences in production, whether it is positive or negative. Below are some of the key reasons why the non-separable relationship between design and manufacturing plays major roles in supplier sourcing.

Not every supplier, even if they serve the same vertical, is equal.

Experience is king in manufacturing. A typical supplier usually has to realize a large portfolio of different products for their clients even if the former fall into the same general category. For instance, in the consumer electronics sector, products are more or less homogeneous in terms of their physical construction, consisting of mechanical enclosures, electronics, and software. This similarity has been driven by the fact that hardware chipsets are extremely versatile these days and can be programmed to perform a wide range of product functions. Such a commonality leads to a misconception that most consumer electronics suppliers are on par in terms of their production capabilities, and the sourcing focus shifts to one on cost comparison. The case in point was a swimming wearable start-up who picked a supplier who has little experience on molded-in flexible electronics. The supplier does not have much experience in tooling up flexible mechanical parts, not to mention understanding the process parameters required for flexible PCBA (Printed Circuit Board Assembly) to remain stable in tools and not be damaged as the mechanical structure was molded around the former. The result is that the start-up spent most of their financial resources with this supplier on production trial-and-errors, leaving little or no resource for their subsequent marketing campaigns while delaying time-to-market.

Best for the business, or best for your product design?

Suppliers usually do what is best for their business, rather than that for realizing your products, or they simply default to the path of least resistance. A houseware start-up had a great idea on improving the garbage bag extraction experience through an innovative garbage bin design. This design contains two large stainless steel panels with various 90 degree bends on each, the angle tolerances of which have a significant impact of how the product performs and the resulting user experience. The chosen supplier, with no internal sheet metal fabrication capability, picked a cheap tier-2 supplier with little quality control process in place and less-than-ideal production floor management. Since the tolerance of the panels could not be controlled well, the production yield could only reach 80% which directly translated into a more expensive unit cost for the houseware start-up.

You might not want to hear it, but your product design is not ready for production!

Once you provide a product design to a suppler, the most experienced and process-oriented ones would provide a DFM (Design-to-Manufacturing) assessment in return, detailing what aspects of your product design will likely have negative consequences when produced. They might even further recommend design improvements to alleviate the associated production risks. Such a comprehensive DFM assessment helps set right expectations in terms of costs, schedule and risks, and if it is not done, surprises are almost always guaranteed which in turn leads to complications in funding cycles, product launch timing, field quality performance, etc. And yes, the assessment of the supplier and in turn theirs on your product design starts with the CAD files.

Consider not only the initial ramp-up, but the longer-term production.

Your electrical engineering team has meticulously designed and chosen the most appropriate components on the PCBA to ensure the best product functionalities. You then send the ECAD database to your chosen supplier and provide them a deadline of production ramp-up and set volume expectations. Only that after this initial ramp-up, the supplier informs you that there are shortages in a few of the key components on your PCBA design, and some of them are getting to the EOF (End-of-Life) status. You now have to tell your clients that your products are not going to reach their shelves in time, and scramble to find extra development funding for a re-design effort that is needed to incorporate alternative components. A supply chain resilience review should have been initiated once the PCBA design is transferred to suppliers, and the good ones will always provide comprehensive supply chain insights into the time horizon that compasses your production schedule and life-cycle requirements; such an important step of a wider supply chain strategy starts with the CAD files.

What if you do have a gap in the design-to-manufacturing transition?

There are lots of facets to be considered when sourcing the right manufacturing partner for your product, and starting from the product design and determining which supplier can best realize your product vision and design intent in the least risky manner is key. Of course, not every product company can speak both the design and manufacturing languages equally well, and can understand the intricate consequential relationships between the two arenas. This is where the deep, extensive and integrated experiences in product development, tooling and manufacturing of Amazing Lab can be valuable in your sourcing process. Let’s talk supply chain strategy together today!

Kevin Ko, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Amazing Lab

#productdesign #CAD #supplychain #sourcing #startups #manufacturingforstartups #dfm