A startup has a working prototype. It was machined from solid, by hand, one at a time, and it does exactly what it should.
They order the first production run. The process that will actually make it in quantity cannot produce some of the features, the wall thicknesses are wrong for it, and the tolerances specified are far tighter than the function requires.
Everything is fixable. All of it would have been free to fix three months earlier, and instead it costs a redesign, a delay and a tooling revision.
Step 1: talk to a manufacturer before finishing the design
The single highest value action available. Changes made at this point cost nothing, and the same changes after tooling cost a great deal.
Step 2: establish the realistic production quantity
Because the process depends entirely on it, which is the arithmetic set out in minimum run and tooling cost questions.
Step 3: choose the process before finalising geometry
Each process has its own rules about features, thicknesses, draft and radii, and a design drawn without one in mind rarely suits any of them.
Step 4: review the tolerances honestly
Which dimensions actually matter for function. Over specification is one of the largest avoidable costs in a first production run.
Step 5: review the material against the process
A grade that prototyped well may behave differently in production, which is a conversation worth having before the order rather than after.
Step 6: request a pre production sample
Made by the real process with the real tooling, which is the ground in sample and prototype request questions.
Step 7: plan the tooling lead time into the schedule
Tooling is made before any part is, and startups routinely plan a launch date against a part lead time that excludes it.
Step 8: agree the inspection standard in advance
What is measured, how often and what constitutes acceptable. This prevents the dispute that otherwise arrives with the first delivery.
Step 9: plan for a first article approval
A formal check of the first parts against the drawing, before the run continues, which catches a problem at ten parts rather than at five thousand.
Step 10: budget for a revision
Almost every first production run produces changes. A startup that has planned for one handles it, and one that has not treats it as a failure.
Step 11: establish who owns the tooling
Before paying for it. This determines whether the work can move later and it is frequently not discussed at all.
Step 12: understand the lead time for repeat orders
Shorter than the first, and the number the business actually needs to plan around, as in lead time questions that decide which supplier wins.
Step 13: keep the documentation as it changes
Revisions, reasons and approvals, so the next order does not repeat a discussion nobody wrote down.
Step 14: make the manufacturer reachable at the design stage
An assistant that asks what the part does, what quantity is planned, what process is intended and what tolerances matter, and that routes a real technical question to an engineer quickly, gets a startup talking to a manufacturer three months before they currently do. Set it up through install the widget and train your bot, with the booking flow in question to booked call. The sector view sits under manufacturing.