Manufacture, at volume.
In context: Stage 09 · Manufacture
Where a proven design becomes production-ready parts, methods and schedules, then gets made at volume through an orchestrated supply chain.
Manufacture turns a tested design into the documents and systems that let a supply chain make it repeatably. Two sub-stages: production engineering (the CAD, drawings, methods and quality docs that define how each part is made) and production (the schedules, routing and MRP that run the line). Asset-light, supply-chain orchestrated.
What the Manufacture stage is
Manufacture is the stage where a design that has survived prototyping becomes something a factory can actually make, hundreds or thousands of times, without you in the room. You rework the CAD for production, write the drawings and method sheets, set the quality checks, then build the schedules and material flows that drive the line. The work is asset-light: you orchestrate suppliers rather than own machines, so the systems and documents have to carry the precision the design needs.
For the £149 proofing box, this is where Dan and Anna Hartley’s Stockport idea got costed and committed to a real first run of 500 to 1,000 units. I split the build across a Stoke-on-Trent ceramic shell and a Manchester PCB supplier, wrote the production drawings and quality control docs each would work to, and set the assembly plan and schedule so the two streams met cleanly. The UKCA and BS EN evidence from Develop fed straight into the production documents.
What’s in this stage
Manufacture runs in two sub-stages: production engineering, then production. Lock down how each part is made and checked first, then plan and run the volume that follows.
How it fits the bigger picture
Manufacture builds on Stage 08 Develop, taking a design whose risks have already been wrung out in prototyping and turning it into the documents and systems that make it repeatably at volume. It leads into Stage 10 Deliver: once the line is producing units that pass quality control, the job becomes getting them packed, shipped and into customers’ hands, with the production records there to support warranty, returns and the next run.
What it can do
It turns a proven design into a complete production package: the CAD, drawings, methods and quality checks that define every part, plus the schedules and material systems that run the line. Done well, it lets an asset-light supply chain make your product consistently, at the cost and quality the business case needs.
What it can’t do
It can’t rescue an unproven design; committing tooling and a first run to something that skipped Develop just makes the mistakes at scale. And it can’t get the product to the customer; warehousing, shipping and after-sales are Stage 10 Deliver’s job.
See the full 10-stage process →
Try it yourself
Take your own product and list the parts it is built from. For each one, write down who could make it, the process they would use and the single check that proves it is right. Where you cannot answer, that is the production engineering work waiting to be done before you commit a run.
Or run the guided version. The Free Sprint covers the early stages; the production and manufacturing tools sit in the paid ladder. Start the Free Sprint →
— Start here → Production 3D CAD