Closing the gap between
Design & Production
Helping furniture and home goods brands build products
that are beautiful to design and practical to manufacture.
Closing the gap between
Two languages. One process. Most brands are missing the translator.
Design and production speak different languages. Design teams optimize for aesthetics and function. Production teams optimize for repeatability, speed, and cost. Without someone who speaks both, the gap between them fills with assumptions — and assumptions become errors, cost overruns, and redesigns.
What most brands don’t realize is that the direction of dependency runs from production toward design, not the other way around. Your factory’s capabilities, tolerances, and materials define what’s actually possible. Great design works within those constraints. Design that ignores them looks beautiful in CAD and creates problems on the floor.
That gap is where I work.
With a background that spans concept design, CNC programming, engineering documentation, and factory floor production, I understand both sides of the conversation. My role is to close the distance between what was designed and what can actually be built — without compromising the intent behind either.
This is for you if you're...
Launching Your
First Collection
You have a strong design vision and a manufacturer lined up. But the drawings aren't fully resolved, the BOM is incomplete, and you're not entirely sure what questions the factory is going to come back with. You want someone to review what you have before production begins — not after the first samples come back wrong.
Expanding an
Existing Line
You've launched successfully and now you're adding new products. The design process that worked for your first collection is starting to show cracks as complexity increases. New SKUs, new materials, new production challenges. The handoff between design and production needs to be tighter than it was before.
Moving From
Custom to Repeatable
You've been building one-off or semi-custom products and now you want to manufacture at scale. The problem is that custom workflows don't translate directly into repeatable production systems. Drawings that worked for a single piece need to be engineered for consistency, efficiency, and manufacturability across every unit.
How I Work
Every engagement starts in the same place:
understanding exactly where the gap is before deciding how to close it.
Step 1 — Design-to-Production Assessment
A fixed-price review of your current design and production documentation. I look at your drawing package, your BOM, your materials, and your production context — then identify where ambiguity, manufacturability issues, or cost risks exist before they reach the factory floor.
Includes:
- Drawing package review
- BOM review
- Manufacturing risk assessment
- DFM opportunities
- Cost reduction opportunities
- Ambiguity report
- 90-minute findings review
Step 2 — What Comes Next
Every product and every team is different. Based on what the assessment finds, we determine together what kind of support makes the most sense — whether that’s a focused implementation sprint, ongoing DFM advisory during active development, or something else entirely.
No predetermined packages. Just the right scope for your specific situation.
About Mike
I started as a CNC programmer and fabricator — receiving drawings, interpreting intent, and figuring out how to build what designers imagined.
Later I led design and engineering teams, developing products from concept through prototype and into production. Along the way I managed $1M+ in custom furniture and millwork projects across North America, built and scaled a CNC department from a single machine to a multi-shift operation, and launched Sonoforma, a teak furniture brand built in Nicaragua that has been featured in Wallpaper, Design Milk, and Contemporist.
That path — from the factory floor to the drawing board and back — is what makes this work possible. I understand what designers are trying to protect and what production teams are trying to avoid. My job is to make sure both sides win before anything gets built.
I’m Canadian, based in Nicaragua, and work remotely with furniture and home goods brands across North and Central America.