Lab success is not production success. A system that works beautifully on a bench can fall apart on a line.
What production introduces
- Vibration
- Operators with different habits
- Maintenance (or the lack of it)
- Throughput constraints
- Continuous process variation
The questions I ask before calling it done
- Can it run for months without babysitting?
- Can other people maintain it?
- Can it survive process variation it has never seen?
Lab success means very little. Production is the real test.