How can you ensure your design is optimized for manufacturing efficiency?

To optimize manufacturing efficiency, start with essential design to meet basic requirements. Extra features can escalate costs and time. Engage with technicians for practical insights. Consider available resources like machinery, materials, and labor. Use standard parts to save costs and time. Apply Design for Manufacturing (DFM) principles to anticipate production issues. Prototyping helps identify early problems. Regular feedback from the manufacturing team aids in design improvement. The goal is a cost-effective design that meets product needs and is easy to manufacture. Balance design, function, and manufacturability. Consider the customer’s time and what they’re paying to avoid wasted costs. Keep designs simple and user-friendly.

Material is important in regards to the allowable composition and hardness requirements. Shrink rate of the material can also be an important aspect that should be considered as well. Another question you must ask yourself is exactly how you are to hold the workpiece during the machining process. If you must design the work holding solution as well, then it would be wise to check your fit, form, and function by assembling the 3D components within the CAD software. When you are able to check mounting distance and functional repeatability of the fixturing, then you can ensure that most times the design for work holding need only be machined once with no unforeseen errors present upon completion of the machining process.

When it comes to material choice, having good working relationships with your suppliers will definitely help you make better decisions. When designing a new part or process, making a few phone calls or emails to your reps will allow you to bounce ideas back and forth and ensure that you get a suitable (and readily available) material for your project.

Know your assembly and test environment! It is commonsensical but surprising how companies "wing it" and get bit with delivery and nonconformance issues.......... If you can afford it & the product has a decent lifetime, invest in CAD modeling of all the processes. Especially focusing on those expensive, low-yielding steps that cause the highest scrap, rework, and resource consumption. Build a virtual factory backed by design RULES and guidelines. Run the product changes or new products against the RULES and guidelines. Conflict? Get your team to work on resolving the issues to accept them in the future. Characterize, verify, & validate. Document & revise the RULES and Guidelines. Sales/Marketing can utilize these facts w/ customers.

Talking to those on the shop floor. They know better then anyone the limits of the machines they are working on and the pain points of the current or previous designs that are similar. This helps craft a solution that suits the engineering ask and the wants of production.