Case studies

Time each assembly step at two volumes before you requote a single component.

Four production runs of a sensor node. Cost per unit fell 41% between runs one and three, then 3% between three and four, and the team spent two months quoting cheaper parts before they looked at assembly.

Size batch one so the raise still covers batch two at the same unit cost.

A cookware brand put its whole seed round into one production run, sold it out in nine weeks, and then could not pay for the second run until the first had collected.

Price the first tool as a prototype you will throw away, and hold the difference for the replacement.

An injection-moulding programme in Nairobi spent four months and two revisions trying to get one tool right, and shipped six weeks after switching to a cheap tool it expected to replace.

Plan the bridge tool into the schedule so the first parts are a test rather than a commitment.

The same argument as the Nairobi programme, run deliberately rather than by accident: a bracket maker planned two tools from the start and used the first to find eleven changes.

Run one paid pilot batch a year with a supplier you are not using.

A contract assembler went from responsive to unreachable in three weeks. The switch took four months, and three of them were qualification the team could have done a year earlier.

List every part over 12 weeks lead time in week one and order the top three on a best guess.

A compressor with a 22-week lead time set the whole schedule, and the team discovered that four months after freezing everything else.