What this layout costs, before there is an order
An EMS provider does not do the development, but it can see in someone else's layout what that layout will do in its own hall: which part drives the setup time, which pitch forces a hand-placement station, which position has only a single source. Design advisory turns that knowledge into a finding per design feature, one you mirror back to your customer while the design can still be changed. In minutes rather than weeks.
Teamcenter, Windchill, 3DEXPERIENCE sit at the customer, not with you. They know the design state, the BOM, the approvals. They know nothing about your plant.
What does this layout trigger in this plant?
Knows the plant exactly, but starts at order release. About a design that is not yet an order it says nothing.
The most expensive decision is made before anyone can cost it
Once the layout is fixed, most of the manufacturing cost is fixed with it: part choice, pitch, layer stack, share of through-hole parts, testability. At exactly that moment development has no figure to work with. It arrives with the quotation, and by then every change costs a release cycle. Today an experienced process engineer answers this by email when he has time. That is good knowledge, but it comes too late and it does not scale.
How the assessment runs
Say what matters
Cost, CO2, material compliance and supply security are weighted up front. That is not a formality: the cheaper part is often the one with a single source. Setting the goal beforehand saves arguing about it afterwards.
Read the design data
ODB++, IPC-2581, Gerber and the BOM, which is exactly what development exports anyway. Plus the native layouts from KiCad and Altium. ODB++ and the native layout carry the layer stack and it is read out; a bare Gerber set does not, and then base material, thickness and copper weight become assumptions. An assumed copper weight goes straight into the bare board price.
Findings per design feature
Back comes what only the manufacturing side knows: cost, CO2e, compliance and supply risk per design feature, each with the exact place in the layout. Not a total at the end that nobody can act on.
A quotation you can talk about
Two prices: binding for the design as submitted, conditional for named changes. Plus the quantity at which a change starts to pay for itself.
What you mirror back to your customer
Cost per design feature
Euro per piece and per lot, derived from the geometry and your plant's machine model, not from a stored flat rate. What becomes visible is not just the total but which place in the layout drives it.
Carbon footprint, calculated rather than estimated
The material share comes from the BOM, the manufacturing share from machine time times power draw times the emission factor of your own electricity contract. The same arithmetic that produces euros produces kilowatt hours.
Material compliance
RoHS, lead-free, halogen-free, lead finish, MSL class and AEC-Q per part. Checked against the design, not at goods receipt where a deviation costs the delivery date.
Supply security
Qualified sources, lifecycle status, lead time and manufacturer concentration. A part with a single source is a design risk, not a purchasing problem.
A quotation that starts a conversation
A quotation with one number gets compared and pushed down. A quotation with a number, a reason and an alternative starts a conversation in which you know the customer's cost structure better than he does.
No number with an asterisk
If the geometry measurement or the time model behind a finding is not solid, no amount comes out at all. The finding appears without a price and stays out of customer documents. A wrong number sent to someone else's development department destroys trust permanently.
Goals weighted before the analysis: cost, CO2, compliance, supply
CAD formats read: ODB++, IPC-2581, Gerber, KiCad, Altium
Prices in the quotation: binding for the design, conditional for the change
Numbers without a solid basis in a customer document
Why this gets you to the table earlier
Anyone who can tell an outside development department which place in the layout costs how much, how much CO2 it causes and where the supply risk sits is no longer selling placement hours but a basis for decisions. That moves the point at which you enter a project: no longer the quoting round where three manufacturers argue over the same price, but the development phase where the design is still being discussed. No competitor documents this publicly at present, as of August 2026.
Frequently asked questions
- What is Design Advisory?
- An assessment of the fabrication data set before an order exists. From ODB++, IPC-2581, Gerber and the bill of materials come back cost, carbon footprint, material compliance and supply risk, per design feature and with the exact location in the layout. It closes the gap between PLM/PDM, which knows the design state but has no machine model, and MES, which starts at order release.
- What does a manufacturer see in someone else's layout that the developer does not?
- Everything that hangs off the machine park rather than off the schematic. A pitch below what the placement machine sets reliably pushes that position onto a hand-placement station and into a different cost class. A part in an odd package occupies a wide feeder lane and displaces two others. A test point with no access makes in-circuit testing impossible even though the assembly works perfectly. The developer cannot know this: it is in no datasheet, it is in the machine model of the plant that will later build the board.
- Where does the CO2 figure per assembly come from?
- It is calculated, not estimated. The material share comes from the BOM; the manufacturing share is machine time times power consumption times the emission factor of the plant’s electricity contract. The same multiplication that produces euros produces kWh, which makes the figure steerable at design time and gives the OEM a real Scope 3 number per assembly instead of a per-kilogram estimate.
- What is a negotiable quote?
- A quote carrying two prices: the binding one for the design as submitted, and a conditional one if the customer accepts named changes, which change, at which location, with the derivation and the quantity threshold at which it pays off.
- What does a finding show when its cost impact cannot be quantified reliably?
- It is still reported, but without a figure. If the geometry measurement or the time model behind a finding is uncertain, the finding appears without an amount and is excluded from customer-facing documents. A wrong number sent to someone else’s development team destroys trust permanently; silence in doubt is a feature here, not a gap.
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