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Why Startups Must Curtail Costs by Streamlining Designs

Many people would like to start their own businesses. They believe that going into business for themselves is the path to easy money. They quickly discover that making a business profitable is much more difficult than they thought.

Smart business owners need to understand how to keep startup costs in line. One of the costs that they need to look at carefully is design. This is something that PCB manufacturers in particular and companies in general must understand.

The Importance of Keeping Design Costs in Check

The average profit margin for a small business is only 10%. The total net income at the end of the year for most businesses is even more depressing to look at. The average business only makes about $30,000 after all expenses.

Businesses have to figure out very quickly that they need to keep their wasteful costs as low as possible. They should only spend money on expenditures that are likely to pay off in one of two ways:

  • They reduce future cost but even more over the long-term
  • They significantly increase revenue

A PCB manufacturer discussed this. If you are interested in cutting costs, you should do a Google search on the best PCB design tool and make sure to review your options carefully. Business owners need to look at design expenditures the same way that they would any other investment. Whether they are designing a website or a printed circuit board, they need to make sure they are getting value from their investment.

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Things to Consider when Investing in Design Solutions

We spoke with some companies that design PCBs. They shared a number of things that business owners need to think about when designing a printed circuit board. Although their statements were specific to PCB manufacturing and design, their conclusions could be applied to other design services as well.

Here are some of the factors that need to be taken into consideration.

1- Invest in Technology that Reduces Man Hours

Some business owners might be hesitant to invest in new technology. Their aversion to paying for new technology could make them pennywise and pound foolish.

A design program could easily cost $100 or more. However, it could improve the efficiency of your design team by 100%. If you pay a full-time designer $25 an hour, then you could move them from 40 hours a week to 20 hours a week after purchasing this software. That would save you $500 in the first week!

2- Look for Quality Services that can Protect Your Brand

Companies that manufacture printed circuit boards appreciate the need to create good designs. They will quickly get a reputation for being a low-quality PCB manufacture if their designs are poor.

The same applies to any company that needs designs of any kind. You can’t afford to sabotage your brand with low quality designs. It is better to pay for quality services.

3- Keep Development & Manufacturing Costs in Mind

When a company is designing anything, whether it is a PCB or a website, they have to remember that the execution doesn’t end with the design itself. They are also going to have to build and maintain the final product.

Some designs might look nice on paper. However, they are going to be very costly to produce in the long term. The following factors need to be taken into consideration to make sure that the design is feasible and will lead to a high-quality final product:

  • The cost of the materials is the first thing to look at. My old engineering professor pointed out that there was often a clash between mechanical and manufacturing engineers in the workforce. The manufacturing engineers would often have to tell the mechanical engineers that the design they came up with would not be feasible from a cost standpoint. The biggest reason is that the company could not budget for certain materials.
  • Some designs require certain specialists to develop a prototype and final product. This can be very expensive.
  • Some designs call for materials that might not be available indefinitely. One of the biggest challenges that PCB manufacturers face is that a lot of the materials are banned for environmental reasons. They need designs that will use reusable, sustainable materials.

There are a lot of cost constraints that companies designing PCBs and other products need to be aware of. They have to keep these in mind when they are building the initial design.

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