What the Four-Week Sample Target Covers and Excludes

The four-week target describes the sample build cycle for programs that meet its preconditions: design confirmation, material and tooling availability, fabrication, assembly, and first-article checks inside roughly four weeks. It excludes the time before the clock starts—specification clarification, drawing approval, and commercial agreement—and excludes qualification testing that runs beyond the sample build. Treat the target as the production window once the program is ready, not as the total time from first contact to sample.

Preconditions That Make a Four-Week Sample Cycle Possible

A four-week cycle is possible when the program arrives ready:

• A frozen specification with resolution, interface, environment, and acceptance criteria.
• CAD-ready drawings with mechanical outline, active-area position, and FPC route.
• An existing platform or available materials—no long-lead custom tooling.
• A sample scope limited to what the cycle can prove.

Each precondition removes a delay that otherwise lands inside the four weeks. The target is a program-management goal that the buyer and supplier enable together by arriving ready.

Milestone Plan: What Should Happen Within the Target Cycle

Inside the cycle, the program should move through defined milestones: design confirmation and drawing sign-off in the first days, material and tooling preparation, fabrication, assembly, and first-article checks before the sample ships. Milestones give the four weeks structure—each week has a deliverable, and slippage is visible early instead of discovered at the deadline. Publishing the milestone plan at kick-off is what makes the target trackable.

Validation Points Inside a Four-Week Sample Cycle

A fast sample cycle must not skip validation. Validation points inside the window include drawing and tolerance confirmation, first-article dimensional checks, power-on and functional verification, and optical checks against the specification. Tests that need long durations—reliability, thermal cycling, and qualification—run beyond the sample window as separate programs. The four-week target produces samples ready for the buyer’s next stage; it does not compress reliability evidence into four weeks.

What Breaks a Four-Week Target: Sample-Specific Delays

The most common breaks are sample-specific: late specification changes, drawings that arrive without tolerances or FPC details, custom tooling or materials with long lead times, revision rounds that restart fabrication, and buyer approval delays at milestones. Each break adds days or weeks to the cycle, and most are preventable on the buyer’s side before the clock starts. When a break happens, the milestone plan shows where the time went and what the new date is.

When a Four-Week Sample Target Is Not Realistic

The target is not realistic when the program carries long-lead work: a fully custom cell design, new glass tooling, custom backlight tooling, or qualification that must complete before samples are useful. It is also unrealistic when the specification is still moving or the drawings are incomplete. For those programs, a longer cycle with explicit milestones is the honest plan—committing to four weeks without the preconditions sets the program up to miss.

Verifying a Four-Week Quote: Questions to Ask

1. What exactly does the four-week window cover, and what is excluded?
2. Which preconditions must I deliver before the clock starts?
3. What are the milestones inside the four weeks, and who approves each?
4. What happens to the date if drawings or approvals are late?

The four-week figure is CDTech’s project target and planning scenario. It is not a guarantee or a standard lead time; confirm the schedule for your specification in writing before the program starts.