The MiLA Manufacturing Checklist
The MiLA team has nearly three decades of combined manufacturing experience touching satellites, rockets, lighting controls, passenger planes, and more. And in the past four years, we have had the joy to share our experience with hundreds founders on their first hardware journey.
One thing that founders keep asking us for is a simple roadmap or checklist so that they are not forgetting anything important. And for years we pushed back. We didn’t think that we could create one. The NEO Tech checklist is nearly 20 pages! Something that long may be appropriate for an X-Band Precision Approach Radar but may not be relevant to the maker taking her IoT device off of the breadboard for the first time. How do you take something as complicated as manufacturing and create simple rules that apply equally to rockets and to high heel shoes?
We pushed our team to simplify EVERYTHING down to a single sheet of paper. And we made it (double sided counts)!
Enjoy! We hope we have found the right balance between depth and breadth.
The checklist would not exist without the help of a few key friends. We wish to thank Manuel Camarena (former Beats and DAQRI manufacturing executive), Martin Dalgaard (Bluefish), Michael Corr (Duro Labs), Sebastian Jeschko (Brinc), the Make in LA founders, and many NEO Tech engineers for their help with this checklist.
And before you run off, there is one more rule that applies to all of the items on the checklist: use basic language. Jargon can make your team move quickly and feel like a cohesive tribe. However, when running a complex supply chain, the more complicated your language the more likely it is that someone will not seek to clarify and make a bad assumption.
If you have feedback or improvements on the checklist, let us know on twitter. Thanks!
