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Build Better Handbook: Table of Contents
  •   

    Start Here

    • Introduction to the Build Better Handbook

    • Manufacturing Term Glossary

  •   

    Getting Culture Right

    • Jeff Lutz: Team Culture Drives Product Performancepopular

    • Scrappy Ways to Execute Like Applepopular

    • Building a Culture of Quality

      • Building the World's Most Reliable Products: Insights from Medical and Defense Leaders
      • Fear Management
  •   

    NPI: A How To Guide for Engineers & Their Leaders

    • Leading from the Front

      • Marcel Tremblay: The Olympic Mindset & Engineering Leadershippopular
      • Anurag Gupta: Framework to Accelerate NPI
      • Kyle Wiens on Why Design Repairability is Good for Business
      • Nathan Ackerman on NPI: Do The Hard Thing First
      • JDM Operational Excellence in NPI
    • Building the Team

      • Quality is Set in Development & Maintained in Production
      • 3 Lessons from Tesla’s Former NPI Leader
      • Maik Duwensee: The Future of Hardware Integrity & Reliability
      • Reject Fake NPI Schedules to Ship on Time
      • Leadership Guidance for Failure to Meet Exit Criteria
    • Screws & Glue: Getting Stuff Done

      • Choosing the best CAD software for product design
      • Screws vs Glues in Design, Assembly, & Repair
      • Best Practices for Glue in Electronics
      • A Practical Guide to Magnets
      • Inspection 101: Measurements
      • A Primer on Color Matching
      • OK2Fly Checklists
      • Developing Your Reliability Test Suite
      • Guide to DOEs (Design of Experiments)
      • Ten Chinese phrases for your next build
    • NPI Processes & Workflows

      • EVT, DVT, PVT Stage Gate Definitions
      • Hardware Schedules are Driven by Iteration
      • The Shedletsky Test: 12 Requirements for NPI Programs
      • 4 Best Practices for Generational Knowledge Building
  •   

    Production: A Primer for Operations, Quality, & Their Leaders

    • Behind the Pins: How We Built a Smarter Way to Inspect Connectors

    • Former Apple Executive Bryan Roos on Leading Teams in China and Managing Up

    • Leading for Scale

      • Navigating Factory Moves and Scaling Production in an Era of Uncertainty with PRG's Wayne Miller
      • Steven Nickel on How Google Designs for Repair
      • Petcube’s Alex Neskin Embraces Imperfection to Deliver Innovation
      • Proven Strategies for Collaborating with Contract Manufacturers
      • Greg Reichow’s Manufacturing Process Performance Quadrants
      • 8D Problem Solving: Sam Bowen Describes the Power of Stopping
      • Cut Costs by Getting Your Engineers in the Field
      • Garrett Bastable on Building Your Own Factory
      • Oracle Supply Chain Leader Mitigates Risk with Better Relationships
      • Brendan Green on Working with Manufacturers
      • Surviving Disaster: A Lesson in Quality from Marcy Alstott
    • Ship It!

      • Serialization for Electronics Manufacturing
      • Tactics to Derisk Ramp
      • E-Commerce Ratings Make Product Quality a Competitive Edge
    • Production Processes & Workflows

      • Failure Analysis Methods for Product Design Engineers: Finding Sources of Error
      • Failure Analysis Methods for Product Design Engineers: Tools and Techniques
      • How to Improve First Pass Yield with Instrumental
      • How to Identify Dark Yield
      • JDM Operational Excellence in Production
  •   

    Thinking Ahead: How to Evaluate New Technologies

    • How to Buy Software (for Hardware Leaders who Usually Don’t)

    • Adopting AI in the Aerospace and Defense Electronics Space

    • Build vs Buy: A Guide to Implementing Smart Manufacturing Technology

    • Leonel Leal on How Engineers Should Frame a Business Case for Innovation

    • Saw through the Buzzwords

      • Managed Cloud vs Self-Hosted Cloud vs On-Premises for Manufacturing Data
      • AOI, Smart AOI, & Beyond: Keyence vs Cognex vs Instrumentalpopular
      • Visual Inspection AI: AWS Lookout, Landing AI, & Instrumental
      • Manual Inspection vs. AI Inspection with Instrumentalpopular
      • Electronics Assembly Automation Tipping Points
      • CTO of ASUS: Systems Integrators for Manufacturing Automation Don't Scale
    • ROI-Driven Business Cases & Realized Value

      • Building a Buying Committee
      • How to Buy Software (for Those Who Usually Don't)
  •   

    Webinars and Live Event Recordings

    • Get Me Outta Here! Racing to Full Production Somewhere Else

    • Tariff Talk for Electronics Brands: Policies Reactions, Reciprocal Tariffs, and more.

    • Materials Planning: The Hidden Challenges of Factory Transitions

    • Build Better 2024 Sessions On Demand

      • Superpowers for Engineers: Leveraging AI to Accelerate NPI | Build Better 2024
      • The Motorola Way, the Apple Way, and the Next Way | Build Better 2024
      • The Future of Functional Test: Fast, Scalable, Simple | Build Better 2024
      • Build Better 2024 Keynote | The Next Way
      • Principles for a Modern Manufacturing Technology Stack for Defense | Build Better 2024
      • What's Next for America's Critical Supply Chains | Build Better 2024
      • Innovating in Refurbishment, Repair, and Remanufacturing | Build Better 2024
      • Leading from the Front: The Missing Chapter for Hardware Executives | Build Better 2024
      • The Next Way for Reducing NPI Cycles | Build Better 2024
      • Scaling Manufacturing: How Zero-to-One Lessons Unlock New Opportunities in Existing Operations | Build Better 2024
    • Build Better Fireside Chats

      • Aerospace and Defense: Headwinds & Tailwinds for Electronics Manufacturing in 2025
      • From Counterfeits to Sanctions: Securing Your Supply Chain in an Era of Conflict
      • Design for Instrumental - Simple Design Ideas for Engineers to Get the Most from AI in NPI
      • Webinar | Shining Light on the Shadow Factory
      • Tactics in Failure Analysis : A fireside chat with Dr. Steven Murray
    • Preparing for Tariffs in 2025: Resources for Electronics Manufacturers

      • How to Prepare for Tariffs in 2025: Leaders Share Lessons and Strategies
      • Tariff Talk for Electronics Brands
      • Talking Trade Compliance with Gabrielle Griffith
      • GUIDE: Moving Your Factory
  1. Build Better Handbook
  2. Webinars and Live Event Recordings
  3. Build Better 2024 Sessions On Demand

Build Better 2024 Sessions On Demand

Estimated reading time: · copy link

Watch all the Build Better 2024 Sessions on demand here in the Build Better Handbook.

Superpowers for Engineers: Leveraging AI to Accelerate NPI

Reality Labs is at the forefront of what the devices and AI future might look like. Take a peek at how Meta's Reality Labs team employs data and AI tools to do the work of 3 engineers on every NPI

Speakers: Judd Nutting (Product Design Engineering Manager, Meta), Miles Hansen (Product Engineering Manager, Meta)

 

 

The Next Way for Reducing NPI Cycles

In 2024, hardware companies are ramping up new product development, with CEOs pushing engineering leaders to cut NPI schedules by up to 50% for profitable growth. Learn how Alan Porter and Alon Ben-Shoshan are helping top electronics brands achieve these NPI cycle time reductions while improving factory and field quality.

Speakers: Alan Porter (Vice President, Electronics Industry, former Apple)

Moderator: Alon Ben-Shoshan (CBO, Instrumental, former Amazon)

 

 

Scaling Manufacturing: How Zero-to-One Lessons Unlock New Opportunities in Existing Operations

Suppliers, fulfillment, manufacturing model -- starting fresh provides fresh perspectives for getting more out of existing manufacturing operations.

Speakers: Sapana Talwalkar (VP of Hardware Operations at Toast)

Moderator: Wayne Miller (Consulting and Business Development Partner at Product Realization Group)

 

 

 

Principles for a Modern Manufacturing Technology Stack for Defense

Anduril is at the bleeding edge of innovation in the defense space. Instead of settling for the limited decades-old technology tools defense primes have chosen, Cy has led his team with a series of principles to embrace cloud, interoperability, and technology.

Speakers: Cy Sack (Head of Business Systems at Anduril)

Moderator: Rich Besen (Head of Innovation - PER Lab, Kearney)

 

 

What's Next for America's Critical Supply Chains

A quick interlude that will be part health check and part motivation for those wondering about Made in USA.

Speakers: Alex Huckstepp (Advisor at Omni Venture, co-founder of Uptool)

 

 

The Future of Functional Test: Fast, Scaleable, Simple

This panel discussion will highlight innovative approaches leaders are taking in test engineering design, spanning the test requirements of consumer electronics, B2B electronics, and defense.

Speakers: Colton Black (Founder & CEO, Onnyx Systems (Former Reekon), Pete Staples (Co-Founder and CEO of Blue Clover Devices), L Lin (Senior Software Manager at Latitude AI, former ChargePoint), Sri Mellacheruvu (Former Meta, Apple, Google)

Moderator: Helaina Hurwitz (Mechanical Engineering Manager, Andrews Cooper)

 

 

 

The Motorola Way, the Apple Way, and the Next Way

There are lots of "ways" to do electronics NPI and manufacturing -- Motorola gave us EVT, DVT, and PVT and Apple gave us execution at scale. What are the core lessons of these methodologies and how are modern organizations honoring or breaking them?

Speakers: Zach Scott (Head of Hardware at Backbone), Matt Hill (Senior Manager, Device Engineering at Snap Inc.) , Felix Alvarez (Manager, Second Order Effects)

Moderator: Patrick McGee (Financial Times)

 

 

 

Leading from the Front: The Missing Chapter for Hardware Executives

There's a missing chapter in leadership books about how to lead in companies that build things. This session is designed to showcase the angular perspectives and philosophies of several leaders we personally admire. Expect tactics and practical takeaways that will make you think about how you're leading in your organization today.

Speakers: Nathan Ackerman (Founder of Stealth AI Startup, Former Amazon, Owl Camera), Bill Carter-Giannini (Hardware Engineering Leader, Team Builder, Business and Operational Advisor), Bryan Roos (Director of Hardware Program Management), Gemma Ross (VP of Operations, OSARO)

Moderator: Keith Lucas (Advisor, Author, former Instrumental COO)

 

 

 

Innovating in Refurbishment, Repair, and Remanufacturing

Units returning from the field are a huge opportunity to build better products upstream -- but most companies aren't taking advantage of it. Leaders on this panel will share practical advice for technology and processes to get the most out of your refurbishment center.

Speakers: Sal Zaman (Sr. Director, Logistics and Hardware Procurement, Toast), Colin Ravenscroft (Senior Manager, Microsoft), Steven Nickel (Director, Consumer Hardware Operations, Google)

Moderator: Matt Zieminski (VP of Partnerships at iFixit)

 

 

 

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