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.
Trusted to develop manufacture-ready connected products for Enterprises, Start-Ups, and Entrepreneurs
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.
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
What Clients Say About Working With Design 1st
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Richard Mineo CEO, Swabbot Solutions LLC 
Design 1st Exceeds Expectations in Responsiveness
Read Case StudyDesign 1st took our Cobot from initial concept through final product testing, handling electrical, mechanical, software, and manufacturing needs all in one team. They efficiently developed our tank access system, finalized our swabbing robot, and created a benchtop version, keeping us updated and responding quickly to every change request.
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George Tsintzouras Director of Product, Christie Digital 
Immediately understood what was needed
Read Case StudyWhen we wanted to transition our older generation projector models to a more modern look and feel, Design 1st was a valuable asset. Given the depth of their design and engineering experience, Design 1st immediately understood what was needed. They worked with our internal engineering team through the process to provide us with compatible solutions to meet our needs.
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Stephen Rayment VP Engineering, Ericsson 
Our trusted engineering partner for six years
Read Case StudyDesign 1st has been our trusted industrial design and mechanical engineering partner for over six years and they have proven themselves to be valuable, competent and committed to our success. They add value because they understand the tradeoffs between user value and cost, the need to balance both the business and product objectives, along with excellent knowledge of materials and manufacturing / tooling options.
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Mike Tettenborn VP Engineering, Caframo 
Right balance of art and engineering
Read Case StudyWe selected Design 1st because their designers and engineers demonstrated the right creativity and technical understanding. With their CAD and modelling tools they were able to address the numerous design challenges encountered with this type of product. The end result was an easy-to-install, powerful marine hatch fan – unlike any on the market.
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Kurt Francis Co-Founder, CTO, Molecule 
Deepest bench of technical talent
Read Case StudyI did a lot of due diligence on product development companies and Design 1st had the deepest bench for technical capability. They worked on such a broad range of products with successful commercialization. Design 1st’s early efforts in prototype development helped us move from a powder substrate into a commercial product for testing.
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John Lupton Director of Engineering, GeoSight 
Got up and running fast
Read Case StudyThe whole design was my idea and I had patents on them. The team’s main work was to solve the functionality issue of a piece of my design. On top of that, they helped identify one of our manufacturers.
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Didi Horn CTO, SkyX 
Exceeded Our Expectations
Read Case StudyThe Design 1st team exceeded our expectations and helped us deliver an exceptional product to the market. As a startup, we were working within a budget but expected the highest quality product. Design 1st identified the risks up front, had the vast network of partners to find the right components, and customized it to meet our unique needs.
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.
The Only Team You Need to Move Your Product Through Design to Production
Design 1st’s in-house team of experts works as a single unit across design, engineering, software, and manufacturing to reduce risk, streamline development, and launch your connected device faster.
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Mechanical Engineering
Find creative mechanical solutions to technical challenges.
Mechanical Design Team
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Industrial Design
Transform your product concept into a refined manufacture-ready design.
Industrial Design Team
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Electronics Engineering
Add power, secure connectivity, and interaction control to your products.
Electronic Design Team
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Portfolio of Projects
Across every industry, our team excels at developing technically complex projects.
Fully Certified and Award-Winning
Our company and staff are professional engineers with multiple industry certifications.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I Need to Sign an NDA First?
NDA’s ensure confidentiality for both parties during conversations. We provide a mutual NDA where the terms apply to both parties. Your organization may already have a mutual NDA that requires our signature. Instead, we handle signatures via email, online, or as circumstances require.
How Much Will My Project Cost?
Designing a new hardware product starts with defining one or two possible Concept Designs (CD), based on requirements and business targets. Our technical sales team create the first CD budget with the major activities. When the work starts, we capture key product requirements, research opportunities, and unknowns, then together with you, we determine the best solution to develop.
Our experienced development team will then facilitate and help you define the many product requirements, carry out the creative design and engineering process, examine manufacturing feasibility, and provide an ongoing estimate of the direct product cost as details are filled in and decisions on features, functions, parts, and quality are made. For a new product concept of moderate complexity, the CD design exploration and architecture definition stage takes 200+ hours. This timeline depends on many factors, including uncertainty about first users and buyers, the uniqueness of the design relative to products in the market, the number of custom components required for design and manufacturing, product safety requirements, manufacturing setup, and the amount of documentation required.
Professional, experienced Product Design and Engineering teams in North America charge $125 to $400 USD per hour. Our rates are competitive at the lower end of this scale. After a phone discussion on your needs, we will provide a detailed design budget for review and signature.
Call us: 1.877.235.1004 x229 or schedule a meeting with Ian Kayser, our VP of Sales, who will help answer questions.
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.
