A software developer can revise a product in a day. Change a gearbox, however, and the timeline is considerably longer. Component availability, tooling, validation and supplier coordination all influence when that revision ultimately reaches production.

“You go to change a gearbox, that change is not happening in a day,” pointed out Dave Evans, president and CEO of MISUMI Americas, who sees that disconnect as one of the biggest obstacles facing manufacturers trying to speed product development.

The refrain is all too familiar for engineers working across mechanical design, automation and robotics. Software and faster prototyping can shorten the early stages of development but it does not automatically resolve the difficulties of sourcing components, managing revisions or scaling a design beyond its first working example.

In an interview with Machine Design at IMTS 2026 in Chicago, Evans argued that companies pursuing greater customization need to rethink how engineering changes move from design through manufacturing and delivery. “We need to think about the tooling that we’re using and we need to think about the full development cycle,” he said, “to be able to build the products of tomorrow in a highly customized way.”

Connecting Design to Production

Evans first encountered this challenge as a mechanical engineer at Ford, where he worked on automotive infotainment systems. Developing a vehicle could take four to six years, he recalled, while Apple was introducing a new iPhone every year.

That gap between digital and physical development cycles remains just as relevant today, particularly as AI accelerates design iteration. New tools make it easier for engineers to explore alternatives, generate concepts and customize products, but the realities of manufacturing do not automatically move at the same pace.

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Physical manufacturing, however, retains constraints that software does not. A revised CAD model still has to be translated into manufacturable geometry, compatible components, appropriate tooling and a repeatable production process. A change to one part may also affect interfaces, assembly sequences or the specifications of neighboring components. The more frequently a design changes, the more important it becomes to manage those dependencies.

After Ford, Evans founded Fictiv, a digital manufacturing business focused on processes including CNC machining, injection molding, sheet-metal fabrication and 3D printing. MISUMI, meanwhile, built its business around standard and configurable mechanical components. Combining the two capabilities gives MISUMI Americas a platform for sourcing standard, configurable and custom-manufactured parts through one workflow. The objective is to simplify a process that often requires engineering teams to coordinate catalogue components, custom parts and multiple suppliers.

Evans described the combination as bringing together two complementary parts of the product development process. “MISUMI is known for building standard and configurable mechanical products, think springs, screws, bearings, linear shafts and other automation components,” he said. “Fictiv could do fully fabricated, or what we call “make” components. When you add that all together, we really can offer a full catalog of mechanical parts for design engineers in automation, in innovation like satellites and humanoids, and other products in medical and aerospace.”

For Evans, digitization is a vital enabler. “The end-to-end process has to be digital,” he said. “You have to have digitally connected systems both in terms of your design, but all the way through to supply chain and delivery of those physical goods if we want customization really to happen.”

That connectivity becomes especially important when a design change affects component specifications, manufacturing methods or supplier requirements. When engineering data and sourcing decisions live in separate systems, even minor revisions can introduce delays, create communication gaps and require additional coordination. To that end, Evans challenged manufacturers to take a hard look at how they manage information today. “Are you still using spreadsheets and emails and different types of SharePoint sites to get file shared?” he asked.

From this vantage point, digital tools ought to facilitate engineering changes by helping them move efficiently through development without losing visibility into revisions, requirements or production impacts. In practice, this requires effective digital workflows that keep design revisions, manufacturing requirements and sourcing decisions synchronized as a product evolves.

Resilience Starts in Product Development

Evans also tied digitization to supply-chain resilience. Tariffs, geopolitical tensions and natural disasters can disrupt sourcing but resilience depends on more than responding to external events. It also requires products that can adapt when suppliers, components or manufacturing strategies shift. “When you think about the challenges in today’s market and environment, I want you to think about how much resiliency you’re building into your product development and your supply chain,” he said.

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This demand for resilience directly shapes how engineers approach product design. Standard components can provide greater sourcing flexibility, while custom parts may be required to meet performance, packaging or application-specific requirements. Engineers must balance those tradeoffs against the time and effort needed to qualify alternatives or redesign around unavailable components.

MISUMI Americas is positioning its combined component and digital manufacturing capabilities as a way to simplify that process. The company is also expanding its reach into early-stage hardware through MISUMI Ventures, a $50 million fund announced in September for startups developing robotics, automation, industrial AI and other hardware technologies. The fund is designed to pair financial investment with manufacturing and supply chain expertise.

Capital is Not Enough

However, bridging the gap between components and commercialization requires more than just capital and supply chains. In robotics, for example, a successful prototype must eventually become a repeatable, manufacturable product, with mechanical assemblies, actuators, sensors and controls working together reliably at scale. Access to manufacturing resources can help startups navigate that transition, but it does not eliminate the need for engineering validation, testing and production planning.

Bridging that very divide is where Evans sees the market’s greatest opportunity. By closing the gap between rapidly evolving design tools and the slower-moving realities of manufacturing, MISUMI aims to make customization practical by connecting stages of product development that have traditionally operated at very different speeds. “Are you making it easier to drive change engineering throughout the development process if you want customization to happen?” he asked.

For design engineers, the immediate challenge is more specific. As customization becomes easier to pursue, organizations must decide whether their development systems can support the additional complexity it creates.

Ultimately, for Evans, faster design is only part of the equation. Success will depend on whether manufacturing systems, suppliers and production workflows can keep pace with accelerating engineering change.

More content from IMTS 2026.

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