One if the most overused expressions by salespeople working to sell consulting services to would be customers is “Design for excellence.” The issue is not with the concept, rather with the very loose standard by which it is applied. Like one persons treasure is another person’s junk; design for excellence is a very subjective expression. Amtech has a set of guiding principles that we share here on the attributes that go into our concept of designing for excellence…
Mechanical and Electrical / Electronic aspects of the product must meet the three “F’s.” These are the fundamental, basic requirements for the design work intended for an application, which are the

• Form
• Fit
• Function

Design for manufacturing accounts for the industrial side of the design features, which include

• Supply Chain considerations
• Manufactured component considerations
• Design for the consistent repeatability of sub-system components
• Design for the consistent repeatability system level assemblies
• Design for the consistent repeatability of process control
• Design for test
• Design to meet regulatory statutes and customer parameters

Quality must be bred into the products that are developed. It is impossible to ‘inspect in’ quality that is not inherently in the pedigree, thus capable of being consistently produced. A well designed product's traits come about throu design for excellence include

• User delight
• Quality and reliability
• Safety
• Serviceability
• User friendliness
• Environmentally friendly
• Rapid time-to-market through rapid time-to-quality

Well-managed, well-executed design programs will maximize desirable characteristics in a product, reduces manufacturing cost and waste which reduces cost, resulting in a superior, competitive product.

Amtech project management, engineering services, planning and deployment yield results that are the definition of Design for Excellence, as described.