as most of CC work and research is done in house i assume, they have an advantage over a customer who has approached a said electronics manufacturer to build a turnkey (final product) or partial pcb (piece meal pita).

alot of work goes into board design in essence alot money is "wasted"(invested) testing the design. most companies will refrain from alpha test board runs and will leave alot to alpha theory testing only with no expense on materials. all board designs are done using a circuit board designer then the design is then either made into pcb in house or sent to a mass manufacturer for full run. if in fact cc sent the full run and then are now required to redesign the board then theres alot of money gone right there as it is. imagine running 10,000 circuit board runs only to find you have a random few that fail? do you proceed with the full 10k and cop it on the chin or do you halt it knowing you will lose the capital for board production and also lose the use of some components? you do the right thing and do a full recall in some cases depending on how critical the product is ie medical, defence end consumer. some recalls are emphatic flaws as opposed to random.

in essence CC have used alot of money as well to have to "re-tool". this is a very light term.

retools involve depending on type or product for industry.

new pcb and design, think a team working 24/7 until its right.more time more $$$

design is sent to circuit board maker, circuit boards are made.more time more $$$

solder paste stencils redesigned and sent off for modding, these things in most cases are laser cut onto high tension aluminium and worth a fortune.the stencils allow to screen solder paste onto a circuit board so it not only holds the components in place, it allows solder to flow properly onto the board through the solder oven. think a huge oven with a pool of molten solder. more time more $$$

gerber files are modded by designer for the changes made and uploaded.more time.

dek or fuji, which is the pick and place machine that shoots electronic components onto the circuit board is configured for the new feeder and part loader. sometimes very time consuming.

stencils and boards come back from the manufacturers ready for loading. more time.

then its battle stations as the machines run flat out. more time more $$$

then functional testing for the final end product, this finds slight abnormalities if any in the boards mainly due to vibration through the pick and place machine. low margin of error depending on the operator but is prone to happen. functional tests push currents through certain points on the board to test parts of the circuit. alot more time and $$$

then the real world test, who ever the lucky person is that brings there MT to work for the sole purpose of testing. much much more time.

thats a very very brief rundown of EMS in plain english terms.

the machines that produce these items for electronic industry depending on what is used is upward of 2.5 to 3 million USD!!!!!! function test machines alone are circa 300 to 500 thousand dollars. then you have to staff them.

we should be so grateful