TOOL BUILD PHASE
Once the Final Design Phase is completed and the deliverables are approved by you, we’ll begin the Tool Build Phase of the product development effort, this is where the tooling, fixtures and process documents are created and set up to support production of your new product. Having the engineers who designed the product, fully engaged in this process is critical to the successful transfer of the product design to production. The phase begins with ensuring that the project team has the correct resources assigned to complete the engineering tasks required to review tooling and fixture designs, release tooling for build, review and approve 1st Article part samples, write work and assembly instructions, and all the other fun tasks that need doing. Our assigned Project Manager will document the detailed work packages by subsystem, and by engineering discipline, to build a detailed schedule for this phase. Then appropriate resources will be assigned. A phase kick-off meeting, coordinated by our Project Manager, signals the formal beginning of the phase ensuring that all team members have a full understanding of their responsibilities and of the requirements, schedule, scope and budget of the phase. As the detailed work tasks are performed our Project Manager will coordinate regular meetings with team members and key Stakeholders and formally report on the status of your program every other week with a written Status Report keeping you informed on progress, spending and issues.
The main goal for this phase is to prepare the product for Alpha production and the related product testing. Depending on the product, these preparations may include creation of assembly instruction sheets, user instructions, product packaging design and testing, UL/CE/FDA/TGA as well as other agency testing requirements, and documenting in-process testing strategies for manufacturing. Meetings with injection moulders, fabricators, contract manufactures, and other critical suppliers will be held to coordinate production start-up activity planning. In addition, production fixtures will be identified and designed to increase manufacturing quality where required and efficiency where possible.
Standard deliverables for the Tool Build Phase often include:
- Approved Tooling and fixture designs
- 1st Article Inspection Reports
- Production Readiness Report
- Assembly and testing instructions
- Product decals, type tags and warning labels
- Product Operation Manuals
- Fixtures for assembly, calibration and testing the product
- First production component lots delivered to a production area
- First production assemblies of the product
- Updated 3D CAD models of components and assemblies
- Updated purchased component specifications and sourcing details
- Updated revisions of 2D engineering drawings
- Updated electrical schematics and wiring diagrams
- Updated Software and Firmware source code
- Updated production costed bill of materials (BOM) based on multiple production quantity levels
- Updated Risk Assessment with mitigation and response strategies
- Detailed plan, schedule, scope and budget for the next phase
Next: Pilot Build Phase of Product Design
Solid Design leverages a proven process to bring new ideas to reality. Our process is a phased approach which is shown graphically below, and this will be tailored to fit the requirements specific to your product design, development and testing needs. Simply click on any of the process phases to see a detailed description of the tasks and potential deliverable of that phase.