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Manufacturing, Sourcing & Supply Chain Expertise In-House
Our integrated design, engineering and part sourcing teams consider manufacturing trade-offs from the start during the early product concept design stage. Strategic part and supplier selection balances quality and minimizes cost and production uncertainties that threaten your product launch timeline and market opportunity window.
Video: Meet our electronics design team (1:45min)
Future-Proof your Product with Manufacturer Independent Mobility
Using an experienced design team that is not directly associated with the manufacture of your product gives you control of your Product Files to easily move production as you react to cost and quality challenges.
Image: Design 1st VP of Manufacturing, Dave Ingram inspecting production run
Our deep manufacturing and process knowledge sets us apart from other design teams.
Great creative design teams are responsible for selecting high-quality, low-risk components. Our designers, engineers, and sourcing experts bring extensive part, material, and process experience to part and process selection. Did you know that up to 70% of product cost gets locked in during the early concept design decisions Our team guides this critical decision making process:
- Early supplier selection for critical parts minimizes your product cost
- Strategic part selection: considers final manufacturing location(s)
- Bill-of-Materials (BOM): estimate cost for business/price strategy
- Finding a Manufacturer for low volume, balancing quality and price
- Quality Assurance guidance: streamline transition to higher volume
Read Feature Article: Fast Company Magazine – How Smart Products Navigate Tariffs, by Design 1st CEO, Kevin Bailey
Specialists – Design Transfer and Manufacturing Coordination
Prototyping concepts, developing products, we specialize in finding parts globally to meet the most challenging technical requirements.
Part Sourcing & Supply
Designs require careful part selection and supplier choices; we are experts at:
- Picking reliable off-the-shelf (OTS) mechanical and electronic components
- Identifying qualified suppliers with suitable minimum order quantities (MOQs)
- Supply chain redundancy and to minimize risks of any necessary single-source parts
- Negotiating component pricing and delivery terms through our network and relationships
- Avoiding component obsolescence and navigating end-of-life part transitions
Manufacturing Partner Selection
Our team helps you coordinate your trusted manufacturing partner, we can:
- Select and vet contract manufacturers, matched to yearly production volume
- Facilitate manufacturer selection, setup and transfer of product files
- Coordinate factory visits, travel and on-site manufacturing review meetings
- Support new product introduction (NPI) – design transfer and revision control
- Coordinate manufacturer agreements, quality assurance, revisions…
Cost Optimization
Part selection and product assembly decisions to drive up performance and drive down cost, we can:
- Provide product costed (BOMs) from early stage estimates to production launch
- Conduct feasibility testing and DFM and DFA assessments with the CM
- Analyze Ex Works factory cost versus landed cost, including tariffs and shipping
- Optimize part and supplier selections for target production cost and yearly volume
- Guide the planning strategy for year 1, lower-volume batch manufacturing
Quality Assurance
We are strategic partners to help you manage production quality and CM coordination, we can:
- Establish quality management documents, contracts and production control plans
- Implement version control revisions of the product file documentation you own
- Coordinate first article inspections and production product performance validation
- Monitor production quality per batch build and update design from warranty returns
- Provide ongoing manufacturer coordination and design change engineering activities
Manufacturing Support Services That Ensure Production Success
Our manufacturing support services prevent costly mistakes by addressing sourcing, costing, and manufacturing strategy early—ensuring smooth transitions from prototype to profitable production
Low-Volume Production Specialists
Prototypes are not mass production, lack of understanding of the difference leads to failure of most hardware startups. Manufacturers make money on high-volume products where refinement of design over time leads to quality and efficiency and reasonable profit for the effort and risk they take. We know how to efficiently build 1 to 100 to 1,000 prototype units for market testing, pre-sales, and scaling validation.
We specialize in helping you navigate short-run prototypes and production with low volume batch build requirements.
In-Person Factory Visits
Evaluating manufacturing partners remotely leads to costly misunderstandings and capability mismatches. Most companies make critical manufacturing decisions based on emails, samples, and promises—only discovering problems when production begins.
Our team travels internationally with clients several times per year to meet suppliers and manufacturers face-to-face. These on-site visits provide direct quality verification, capability assessment, and relationship building that ensures manufacturing partnerships align with your business requirements and quality standards.
Quality Risk Management
Quality issues discovered after launch can kill products and destroy company reputations overnight. Most companies treat quality as an afterthought, implementing basic checks only during final production when problems are expensive and difficult to fix.
We embed quality considerations throughout the entire development process—from component selection to manufacturing transfer. Our systematic QA protocols and defect reduction strategies have helped clients like Joylux dramatically reduce warranty returns while maintaining production scalability and cost targets.
Product Design File Mobility
Documentation updated and controlled by your manufacturer locks companies in, limiting flexibility when there are supply chain disruptions, tariffs, and vendor predictability issues. Once a manufacturer controls the product files, supply strategy changes become expensive and time-consuming.
We create mobile product design files and release control documentation to manage your contract manufacturing relationship, allowing you to be aware of quality and part supplier changes, or move manufacturing locations controlling the choices so expensive redesigns or production delays can be minimized.
Fully Certified and Award-Winning
Our company and staff are professional engineers with multiple industry certifications.
Need help tackling tough technical challenges in your product development?
Design 1st integrates our knowledge and expertise with yours to bring your product idea to life.
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