DfM means design for money. If it can’t be built, that’s a waste.

Great ideas come together with great timing; what’s left is great execution. Flipping the switch that sets the factory in motion causes a few pain points. These “opportunities for improvement” will dictate your agenda down to the minute with all the little things that go wrong. Let’s say there is a factory downstairs from you. Further, the factory is doing slow and laborious rework on old printed circuit boards, aka PCBs. There is a solution! New PCBs. We’re going from P0 (zero) to P1 (one). That’s where we, the designers, come in.

At new PCB time, the first order of business is improving the electronics in some way. The fix could be better performance, lower cost, higher reliability and, in some cases, all the above. Venturing into wireless technology and gaining FCC approval to play in its allocated spectrum is no slam dunk. Beefing up the power grid is a typical step. A good power distribution network has been known to cover for otherwise iffy routing. Every engineer will have some considerations carried forward.

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