Many manufacturing professionals aren’t exactly excited when they’re assigned to a new product pilot build. Pilot production is often complex, fast-paced, and difficult to measure in terms of productivity or performance. Schedules are usually tight, and in the early stages, even the Bill of Materials (BOM) may not be fully finalized. Many tasks still require manual work, and new manufacturing processes often need time to be refined and stabilized.
The challenges don’t stop there. New products typically introduce new components, many of which arrive as bulk parts or tube-fed components instead of production-ready reels. This can create headaches for SMT assembly lines, forcing operators to place parts manually before the boards can enter the reflow oven. The situation is often even more labor-intensive during final assembly, where a significant amount of manual work may still be required.
