This is wild. So totally backwards and frankly rather disturbing to learn.
I have a fair amount of experience in small-scale electronics production — when I’ve designed custom pieces for my clients I make a prototype/proof-of-concept to make sure the thing works, then make a single “finished” unit, and then make a design that’s meant to be mass-produced, which is quite different from making only one of a thing.
To model this, we can think about baking one loaf of bread vs. running a bakery – in a bakery we won’t bake 40 loaves in a row, we’ll bake 40 at once, which is a different (batch) process. Or like, cooking for myself vs. my family vs. catering a wedding.
In this case (my conjecture of course) he’s likely figuring out the most efficient methods (like @bobbcorr said) for each step, how many instruments are realistic to make in a batch (5 or 50 or 250), what the costs are for parts at those quantities, etc. Also, we get faster at assembling things as we learn the best way to put them together. So I usually build a couple and time myself to see how long one build takes, and then maybe a batch of 5 and time that process. Then that gives some insight into what a larger scale production schedule and budget might look like.
