You are an engineer, not a lawyer, so you probably don’t like to think about contracts and contractual obligations. But, even the most elegant designs are not very useful if they don’t satisfy a business objective, and business objectives are measured in revenue (output), costs (capital and operating), profits and risks.
While you may not be involved in negotiations on penalty clauses, bank guarantees, warranty coverage and other minutiae, the one thing that equipment design directly impacts is throughput, which will be one of the main buy-off criteria. So, on that front, at least, you do need to pay close attention to the contract.