There’s something magical about your first few thousand units rolling off the line.
Your prototypes are no longer just sketches or 3D prints; they’re real products that people can hold.
- Your BOM feels locked (well… sort of).
- Your investors are smiling and nodding in approval.
- And for once, your ops team isn’t running around like their hair’s on fire.
But here is a reality check you will not find elsewhere:
What got you to 5,000 units won’t get you to 50,000.
Scaling from NPI (New Product Introduction) to mature production isn’t just about “making more stuff.” It’s about rethinking your systems, processes, and even your mindset. This stage is where founders stop being scrappy and start building for long-term stability.
In this article, we are going to talk about what really changes after those first 5000 units.
Your BOM Is Fragile, Not Frozen!
At 5,000 units, your Bill of Materials feels like good news. So, it’s sitting pretty in your ERP, QA has signed off, and everything seems fine. But the moment of truth begins at scale when things start shifting under your feet.
This is when:
- That primary MOSFET suddenly goes into global allocation.
- A passive component gets re-binned and starts failing in field tests.
- Your plastics vendor casually drops the bomb that your color resin is discontinued.
And you learn your lesson: Your BOM at 5,000 is just a snapshot in time. At 50,000, it’s a living, breathing system that needs constant management, which, well, you cannot ever ignore.
Also Read : BOM (Bill of Materials) vs Box Build: Where Hardware Projects Break
What to do in such a case?
- Set up formal change control: ECNs, revision tracking, and BOM versioning.
- Build a second-source matrix for every critical part, and go a step further by actually testing those alternatives.
- Incorporate your CM into component lifecycle planning, as they often identify obsolescence issues before you do. So yes, it’s always good to leave things in the hands of the experts.
Assembly Moves From Manual → Process-Driven
It won’t come as a surprise that early production runs rely on tribal knowledge. There’s always “that guy” who knows how to seat the LCD just right, or “that girl” who can fix a finicky cable issue in seconds.
But when you’re scaling, tribal knowledge doesn’t scale with you. And out of the sudden:
- You’re training batches of new operators.
- Production shifts are spread across multiple days, maybe even different facilities.
- Test benches are cranking through 100+ units a day.
What to do:
- You can invest in detailed work instructions, jig-based assembly, and visual SOPs.
- Another solution is to create fixture strategies to ensure mounting, alignment, and torque control are consistent.
- Tracking the yield data by station and not just the final output can also help you to spot failure trends before they snowball!
Box Build, Testing, and Packing Become the Bottleneck
Everyone obsesses over PCBA quality early on, but here’s where the problem occurs at the time of scaling: the bottleneck shifts to the last mile. So,
- Your Cable routing isn’t consistent.
- A test jig dies in the middle of a batch.
- And worse? Someone forgets labels, and suddenly 800 units are sitting in a rework pile.
So yes. At scale, the “finishing touches” become your biggest headache. All those bottlenecks shift to the last mile of manufacturing.
Here is what you can do:
- Standardize cable lengths, labeling, and connector orientation to simplify the box build.
- Use modular test setups so you’re not rebuilding benches every time firmware changes.
- Integrate kitting, labeling, and packaging into the build plan. Usually, people treat them as an afterthought, which should not be the case.
Procurement Isn’t a PO Anymore, It’s a System
In the early days, procurement feels scrappy: issue a PO, track it in Excel, ping the distributor on WhatsApp. And well, no doubt that it works when you’re small. But at 50,000 units, small mistakes in procurement snowball into massive delays and real money lost.
Common traps founders fall into, and you can save yourself from:
- Depending on a single distributor for passives or connectors.
- Not tracking actual landed cost vs. what was quoted.
- Ignoring customs delays or import lead times.
What to do:
- Treat procurement as a supply chain function, not just “buying stuff.”
- Build multi-tier visibility: local sources, imports, buffer stock, and alternates..
- Partner with CMs who integrate forecast planning and pre-buying into their systems.
Your Manufacturing Partner Needs to Grow With You
That small contract manufacturer who lovingly built your first 1,000 units may not be the same partner who can carry you through 50,000. And that’s not about loyalty, it’s about capability.
As volumes grow, weak spots show up in:
- Throughput
- Quality consistency
- Line balancing
- Documentation and traceability
What to do:
- Evaluate your CM’s scale-readiness: SMT line capacity, QA systems, automation, and inventory turnover.
- Instead of avoiding, ask the hard question: “Can they deliver this volume month after month, not just once?
- Look for partners like Karkhana.io who invest in tooling, process maturity, and traceability as you grow.
Also Read : Finding the Right Contract Manufacturer for Your Electronics PCB Assembly Needs
Data Moves From Optional → Operational.
- At 500 units, you inspected manually.
- At 5,000 units, you sampled.
- At 50,000 units, you need data at every stage.
So yes, you will need your eyes on:
- SMT yield by machine
- Incoming QC trends
- Final test failure rates
- Assembly rework stats
What to do:
- Implement SPC (Statistical Process Control) across SMT and assembly.
- Work with CMs who offer real-time dashboards and traceability systems.
- Feed failure data back into design and sourcing so issues don’t repeat.
Final Thoughts
One thing we can say without a doubt is that scaling is a shift in the mindset, and not just numbers. NPI is literally all about validation, which includes proving your product works, your idea has legs, and your team can execute. But once you cross that 5,000-unit milestone, the game changes. This is when you reach a stage that demands stability, predictability, and optimization. It’s when:
- You stop firefighting.
- You start building systems.
- You stop relying on one engineer’s memory and start relying on your partner’s process.
So if you’re inching toward that 5,000-unit mark, pause and ask yourself:
“Do we have the right partners, processes, and playbooks, not just to build more, but to build better?”
Because scaling hardware is not just about hitting a number. In fact, it’s about laying the foundation to hit the next 10X, and that too without breaking everything you’ve already worked so hard to build.