Instead of simply pointing out a design flaw, a senior engineer prompted a junior to create a machining plan for their part. Through this exercise, the junior engineer personally discovered the impossible undercuts. This Socratic questioning approach is a powerful teaching tool, as it forces self-realization and critical thinking.

Engineers often strive for perfection, but adding features or quality beyond what the requirements demand is a business failure. It consumes resources without adding justifiable value, harming the project's ROI. True engineering excellence lies in delivering precisely what is needed, on time and on budget.

Design for Excellence goes beyond just manufacturing costs. Consider the entire product lifecycle, including serviceability. A design that's easy to assemble but difficult to service in the field (like using a blind screw on a replaceable part) increases the total cost of ownership and harms the customer experience.

Don't assume a contract manufacturer understands the unwritten context behind your designs. Often, teams provide only partial information but expect perfect results. Success hinges on treating them as a partner, sharing the 'why' and performance nuances beyond the drawing to prevent misinterpretations and build a strong relationship.

When scaling to production, the biggest pitfall is the implicit knowledge held by the original design team who unconsciously fill procedural gaps. To succeed, involve someone with a manufacturing background but no project history to rigorously review procedures and expose these unstated assumptions before scaling.

Designers should consider the human operators and machines that will assemble their product. By making choices that simplify manufacturing—providing clear instructions and avoiding known difficulties—the process becomes smoother and more efficient, akin to 'riding a bike downhill.'

Simple design is fast and cheap, and it starts with minimal requirements. By aggressively questioning every single requirement, even those that seem obvious, engineering teams can often delete constraints or find opportunities to reuse existing solutions, radically simplifying the design and accelerating the production timeline.

An engineer with deep project involvement develops tunnel vision. Bringing in a senior engineer who is unfamiliar with the project allows for high-level pattern recognition and questions about fundamentals (like manufacturability) that the core team may have overlooked while deep in the weeds.

To ensure a smooth transition from development to production, an operations or manufacturing SME must be part of the design process from the start. Otherwise, products are developed without manufacturability in mind, leading to expensive, reactive fixes and subjective quality control during scale-up.