Manufacturing
When the product is ready and everyone is satisfied with all the details the manufacturing process is started. Many times tooling (fixtures that allow for making large numbers of a part) are required. The same CAD drawings that were done in the earlier stages are used in the manufacturing process. These CAD drawings are fed into CAM (computer aided milling) machines as well as other digital process machines and parts are cut, bent, sewn, cast, etc. It was very important in the early CAD stage that those drawings are accurate as the manufactured part’s accuracy depends on them. Manufacturing quantities usually start around 500-1,000 units but it depends on the product and the agreement with the manufacturer.