Did you know that over 80% of a product’s lifecycle cost is determined at the design stage? This means design choices made long before production even begins have profound implications on quality, time to market, sustainability, and profitability.
Every design decision matters when outsourcing electronics manufacturing because speed, scale, and precision are paramount, and the unexpected could cost you more than planned. This is where Design for X (DfX) comes in. It’s a strategic framework that helps OEMs embed excellence right from the start.
DfX (otherwise known as Design for Excellence) is the system you use to 'bake' value and quality into products during their design phase.
Although the ‘X’ is synonymous with ‘excellence’, it also refers to the different elements involved in creating quality products, which you can address systematically within the design process.
These include:
The core idea is simple: by addressing these objectives early in the design phase, you can prevent costly rework and reduce risks during New Product Introduction (NPI).
DfX helps you optimise products for performance, reliability and efficiency as you plan and specify them, rather than improving and iterating in post-production.
Because key resource decisions are made at the design phase, once you’ve started manufacturing, there’s not much you can do about any waste you identify later on. And this is a problem, as there’s a lot of waste about in manufacturing.
The Lean Institute says 95% of process activities associated with manufacturing ultimately add no value to the customer. Meanwhile, HCL Technologies says 70% of the engineering changes that delay production are due to brands trying to retrospectively correct issues with design to deal with assembly, cost, and quality problems.
DfX tackles the potential for procurement problems, over-specification and over-processing that can impact quality and make your products uncompetitive.
DfX ensures:
And it does it from the start, as you plan and specify your products and the way they should be made.
Bottom line is that with margins tightening and time-to-market shrinking, DfX has a direct impact on profitability.
Traditional engineering approaches often focus on vision and functional requirements first, while future product lifecycle and manufacturability concerns are addressed later.
Design for Excellence, on the other hand, considers all these aspects an integral part of the design process so that each iteration of your product is as efficient, cost-effective, easy to assemble, and future-proof as possible.
Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) is the optimisation of a part, product, or component’s design to create it more cheaply and easily without compromising compliance or expected performance.
DfMA looks to:
A comprehensive test strategy should be developed concurrently with your product design. This approach will result in a cost-effective test process with the best possible test coverage.
DfT ensures you have designed your products so you can test them appropriately.
Successful design for testing requires designating important test points in your PCB design files, which your EMS will then use for a variety of tests.
The testing strategies you choose to deploy will require different design input levels and incur different levels of expenses. You need to optimise your design to ensure the right tests can be conducted to ensure the level of quality you require. These strategies may include:
A DfQ strategy identifies potential product and process failure risks as early as possible to ensure they are ‘designed out’ of the product.
DfQ ensures quality by:
Using a DfQ approach can also prevent you from getting locked into compliant but not necessarily cost-effective designs. For example, if a design has proceeded to the prototype stage and been validated for regulatory compliance, you may be committed to manufacturing the product in a certain way for a lengthy period. It might not make sense to re-submit your design to regulators at that point - so your ROI and customer value could be severely impacted.
DfQ takes a holistic approach so that the best value and quality outcomes for customers are always achieved.
You can usefully factor in procurement and cost control expertise at the design stage, too. Done properly, this will help you focus on balancing cost and quality:
BOM (Bill-of-Material) cost is usually a significant portion of the total product cost, so exploring total cost of materials against quality requirements and considering possible alternatives could save you from expensive redesigns in the post-launch phase.
Ensure best value is always sought: For example, understanding that parts can be purchased at a lower price if you choose a particular colour or material will help the design team select the correct product and save cost.
Avoid using materials/components that are about to become obsolete: OEMs specify a particular chip in their design, which may be about to be phased out or become more difficult to source. Thinking about the availability of materials and components and drawing on supply chain expertise within the procurement team is vital.
Product designs can often have unintended environmental consequences, including:
By bringing expert manufacturing teams into your design process you can ensure, from the outset, you are following best practice laid out in various environmental codes, including these standards and regulations:
Bringing manufacturing expertise into your design process early on (as part of a DfX strategy) will ensure your product will be designed and then built in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.
It will ensure you don’t waste time transferring unoptimised designs to Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) providers, but instead have all the required procurement, tooling, testing and logistics plans in place to shift to an optimised NPI without missing a beat.
ESCATEC offers structured, expert-led DfX services designed to help OEMs reduce risk, accelerate time to market, and optimise every aspect of product performance, from concept to production.
Our DfX offering combines deep technical expertise with sector-specific insight across industries. Whether you need a fast design sanity check or a complete cross-domain review, our tiered service packages help you get the most out of your design investment.
ESCATEC’s DfX service offering encapsulates four decades of manufacturing insight, distilled into tangible design improvements that can boost your new product launch or enhance an existing product line.
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Each package includes expert consultations and actionable reports tailored to your goals, ultimately helping your projects to improve yield, reduce costs, or prepare for a regulatory audit.
Whether you're launching a new product or improving an existing one, factoring DfX into your strategy can be the key to your success. Choosing to work with an EMS provider on your DfX strategy can save you the time, effort, and expense of adjusting designs when you meet the hard realities of production. Ultimately, it’ll prevent you from having to spend time and money re-engineering failing products in the future.
By designing smarter from the start, we can reduce costs, speed up your NPI, and elevate your product quality. Explore ESCATEC’s DfX services now, or contact us to find out more.