In manufacturing, failure isn’t an option—it’s a liability. A defective part or a missed delivery triggers a chain reaction that can disrupt schedules, undermine trust, and drain resources.

So when someone suggests a strategy with the word fail in it, skepticism is understandable, because precision is the lifeblood of the operation. Anything that sounds like an invitation to make mistakes feels like an attack on what keeps customers coming back.

The danger of discovering problems too late

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: Failure is already happening; it’s only a question of when we’ll find it. The longer a flawed assumption goes untested, the more capital, time, and credibility become entangled in it.

When a bad idea survives deep into development, the eventual failure delivers the biggest impact at the worst possible moment: a design that can’t be machined, a tolerance stack that collapses at production scale, or a durability surprise discovered after customer commitments are made.

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