Design for X Review in Asia

Ideally, the review should take place before design freeze, while meaningful changes can still be made without expensive disruption.

Starting earlier can also help prevent unsuitable design decisions from becoming embedded in the product.

No. A working prototype demonstrates that the product concept can function, but it does not necessarily prove that it can be manufactured consistently, assembled efficiently, tested adequately, or produced at the required quality and cost.

Your team uses the findings and recommendations to improve the next design iteration.

Where additional support is required, follow-on design engineering, reliability testing, compliance support, sourcing, or NPI services can be scoped separately.

1. Understand your product and design intent
   We ask questions to understand the product’s intended functions, user requirements, operating environment, target production volume, quality expectations, and other important constraints.
2. Review the available design files
   Our engineers review the relevant mechanical, electrical, and electronic design information using a structured, checklist-based process.The files reviewed may vary depending on the product and the stage of development.
3. Identify production-related risks
   We assess the design across the agreed DFX areas and identify decisions that may create manufacturing, assembly, quality, reliability, testing, or cost problems.
4. Recommend improvements
   We provide practical recommendations for the next design iteration, explaining where changes may reduce risk or make the product easier to manufacture and control.

This is a review and advisory service. Any follow-on design work, testing, sourcing, or NPI support is scoped separately.

The output of your DFX review may include:

• A review of your product’s design intent, objectives, requirements, and constraints
• An assessment of the ease of manufacturing custom parts
• An assessment of the ease and consistency of product assembly
• A structured, checklist-based engineering review
• A list of identified risks and concerns
• Recommended changes for the next design iteration
• Comments on manufacturing, tooling, testing, inspection, sourcing, or cost implications where relevant

The precise deliverables will be confirmed when the scope of the review is agreed upon.

Design Reviews, DFM Reviews, and DFX Reviews are related, but they answer different questions and focus on different stages of product development.

We do not believe manufacturability should be reviewed in isolation.
A design decision that looks acceptable from a narrow DFM viewpoint may still create:

• Difficult or time-consuming assembly
• Low process robustness
• Inconsistent product quality
• Weak field reliability
• Poor inspection or test coverage
• Compliance difficulties
• Supply chain constraints
• Unnecessary production costs

DFM therefore remains an important part of the review, but it is not the entire review.

The broader DFX approach allows our engineers to consider how different design decisions may affect the product throughout manufacturing, testing, supply, and use.

DFM remains a core part of the broader DFX review.

Our own checklist, developed by our in-house product design engineers, includes 70 points for mechanical design and 20 points for electrical and electronic design as a starting point.

Here is an excerpt from our DFM review checklist, showing the level of detail and some of the checkpoints our engineers cover:

As part of the DFM portion of the review, our engineers may suggest design improvements that make your product easier and more consistent to manufacture.

The example below shows a previous recommendation for improving ultrasonic welding on a product: