That's a really good question/comment. Here's my experience with a design freeze:
Engineering development doesn't stop. Engineering just gets segmented to support the various new departments and support.
A design freeze is a major milestone for engineering. it's a "phase 1 model" which is used to blueprint pre-production.
The Phase 1 model also establishes hard details necessary for marketing, delivery-setup-installation procedures, user manuals, field engineering maintenance manuals, field repair and customer support communication protocals and...escalation procedures.
Design enhancements and additional functionality based on accessories is not stopped. Those incremental enhancements would be considered Phase 1A, 2A, etc.
It's a very big deal (internal milestone) and creates a branching effect of simultaineous activity.
And IMO the biggest news after hearing of a design freeze…….. dates and places for field trial units prior to launch and availability/delivery dates of production models.
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