Mechanical Design For Manufacturing: How To Cut Cost And Time To Market

DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURING AND ASSEMBLY

Batch Design has always been the norm and standard for mass production. And by batch design, I mean, 'making a collective plan for a specific number of batch release to be mass produced, and once the batch is completed, design may be changed'. This method has for long been upholding businesses due to its strength of making design iteration collective relative to massive number of products and easy to track down regression in products amongst engineers. Engineering is a progressive world where the design constantly changes to suit the ever changing desires of customers and users of engineering products. It is therefore imminent that every engineering design evolves with client taste.

A change to the overall design of products which may affect the batch design process of a manufacturing company, yet being capable of pulling more customers is more than appreciated as a progressive landmark in engineering design and manufacturing. If designers can be more specific on what should change to fit with shifting societal point of view and cultural satisfaction of the people of whom the products would long be with, the terminal point of production.

‎DFM/DFA PRINCIPLES: TOLERANCES, FASTENERS, AND PART COUNT

To be specific with changes in design and batch production schedule, modifying design parts and making each batch design unique such that for it to be manufactured, it would require its own special TOOLING and MACHINING as well as special materials for its build. A batch systematic design would have a set of tooling already made for it and over the years it keeps being reused as a means to cut cost, but in the long run, it doesn't. WHY? Because the original tooling begins to degrade and the DFM/DFA Principles will become a target the plant would be struggling to meet up with as more funds will be pumped into the maintenance of the original tooling.

If the tooling are rather preset and pre-designed per targeted series of batches, and these batches pre-calculated to to meet specific current needs which are definitely assured of instant revenue, the need for maintenance of the tooling would be lesser as once these batches are completed, it covers all production costs and gains, with one having even the extra option of selling of the tooling or recycling them for better upgrades.

A practical scenario of what this refers to is an automobile manufacturer producing dashboards in planned batches. The first batch may use tooling designed for a dashboard with several physical buttons and separate mounting brackets. After customer feedback, engineers redesign the next batch with a larger display, fewer buttons, and integrated brackets. Instead of repeatedly modifying and maintaining the original tooling, new tooling is developed specifically for the new production series. The new design may also reduce part count, fasteners, assembly operations, and manufacturing tolerances. Once the planned batch is completed, its tooling can be retired, reused, upgraded, or recycled for future production.

‎REDUCING MACHINING AND TOOLING COSTS

When one says reducing costs, what comes to mind is OFFERING INFERIOR SERVICES AND PRODUCTS but in this field your mind will understand that cost is not just expenses incurred before a product is manufactured but rather a relative comparison of the money which comes in relative to that which goes out and the rate at which it comes in within a specific period of time. Goods costing ₦10,000,000 per batch, sold at ₦15,000,000,000 per batch, yet having rapid massive turnover of 10 batches a week will be much more profitable than goods costing as low as ₦8,000,000 per batch, sold at ₦20,000,000 and having a weekly turnover of 2 batches. What makes the difference? TOOLING AND MACHINING COSTS. From our discussion so far, rational analysis would lay notes and facts that custom tooling and machining per batch series would be almost as cheap as or a bit more expensive than the industry standards of fixed unchanged tooling and machining over long series of years of untouched tooling and machining.

How is this so? Because you would literally be spending more money on acquisition than production your aim would not be to cut cost in the rational way of thoughts but to seek mass customers who would rapidly make up for the already borne costs. And how this will be achieved is by deep consideration and analysis of what is currently fit into the societal expectancy of engineering in our modern age rather than sticking to the good old methods we are all familiar with. If our designs begin to change to meet up with the economic and socioeconomic wonders of our time, we stand the better chance of making an engineering grip on our modern ever changing world.

‎MATERIAL AND PROCESS SELECTION

A standard engineering procedure for procurement of materials, for both 'tooling and machining materials' and 'products materials' is to verify which would give the longest running time with maximum products output. The good old days are over as people no longer need what is readily available but what is custom suited to their needs. We have markets filled with products that no-one wants to buy, not because of bad engineering design, but because it does not suit their taste. To avoid this, materials should be chosen firstly to satisfy the visuals of the users, secondly, to affirm the users of quality even before they touch or feel it (that is, build quality should be transmitted through the visual stunning design) and thirdly grip evidence should be 100% maximum quality (when the customer touches it, he should be convinced that what he saw is what he is holding).

Visual Engineering also determines the method to use for manufacturing as certain methods do not meet certain striking appearances which the customer requires of before even making a contact or communication with your products. In your design stage, you should eliminate any method requiring constant repetition of tasks and use methods that give regular repeating patterns of product design implementations. The various concepts of design such as shape, form, colour, texture, etc., should have already managed templated library of such, as unique to your niche or expertise of practise as an engineer. This will help narrow down and streamline the specific patterns and types of materials and manufacturing processes to use for each production batch.

‎ALUMINIUM, STEEL, PLASTICS, AND CASTING VS MACHINING

This right here brethren is a bone of contention, which is better? Product manufacturing of top contending materials, Aluminium, Steel and Plastics using top contending methods, casting vs machining, which gives and yields the best profit per cost? The answer is none and the question boils down to what you are manufacturing. From everything we have learnt so far, each unique design thrives only in one of these 3, and that is the one you should go for. After multiple series of prototyping and testing with each of the 3 materials with the 2 methods in line with your designs, pick the one that comfortably lets you blend in with the societal trends without putting strain on you when making your shifts and changes in tooling and machining. This gives you the upper hand as your rapid turnovers will experience short breaks during changes in tooling and machining.

A producer who is solo should consider fast Iterations as his priority as he does not need time lag since he alone does everything. His methods chosen should be one he is so familiar with or he can easily get familiar with in order to speed up the manufacturing process. Therefore his design methodologies for the products should permanently be narrowed down to the final choice of materials and process. Large scale production industries should focus on longer timeframe for a single batch before change in tooling as they incur higher costs per change in tooling and machining which should be paid off by having massive turnovers for a bit more longer than solo or small scale manufacturers would.

‎COST VS STRENGTH VS LEAD TIME TRADEOFFS

Always pick the one that suits you. I will keep saying this over and over again, none is better. A businessman should set his goals straight and work with what is available to get there. As at when you want to take a leap, the resources at your hand, pick the best that meets the cost efficiency, product strength and durability, faster prototyping, iteration and manufacturing time. What you have at hand is what determines the next progress you would make not what is considered the best. With what's available, plan around your locality and what is easily at your reach. From there you can scale to higher unexpected heights. CEO and Management should start accounting for proper combined output of all factors involved in the manufacturing process rather than magnifying one and sucking it of all strength it can offer in order to gain maximum utility from its maximum potential.

Cost is considered as a result of the repercussions of economic pressure where companies try to balance out the fact that they cannot sustain their current cost matched against the decline in demand due to shortage of money circulation in the country and individuals do not have enough funds to make a demand. Lead Time Tradeoffs are also considered as a result of competitions amongst competitors within the same market and one wanting to make his goods readily available to dominate the market. Strength is where I will go for as this is what pleases the customer and guarantees you have a market, and a base of real and factual demand of what you offer to the public.

CAD WORKFLOW AND STANDARDS

Industry Standards have become the norm when a reason to use a specific CAD software is brought up. Everyone says, 'pick this one, it is the industry standard', another says, 'no go with the other one, it is cheaper', while we yet have, 'this one is more user friendly and it is not bloated up like the top ones', and yet again we have a different species that say, 'pick FOSS, it gives absolute freedom'. Personally, I use FOSS CADs for my designs as I love free things and freedom to do what I want (customisations in source codes and native scripting with SDK/API). But in actual sense, all of them visually get the work done. It depends on which you want, primarily using productivity as your yardstick. You may want FOSS, but your immediate productivity demands the so-called industry standards. One must not compromise for pleasure.

Over time the society has grown into a one big complex hub of engineering community, where one does not see himself as the sole engineer with the right design skills but rather as a joined conglomerate of community working together, building one another in little ways as we can, so should your CAD software be. Using multiple softwares could serve as a software community, with one getting a segment of the work done, and another completing the other segment, thus giving the design process multiple boosts from different angles. Having templates and patterns usable across different softwares, a definite recommendation I always give to anyone who is into designs for manufacturing. Your templates should be programmed and programmable templates.

‎PARAMETRIC MODELING, ASSEMBLIES, AND DRAWINGS

Programmed templates refer to the fact that the template was not drawn in the CAD Software but programmed and coded (either through scripts, macros, programming languages, SDK/API interfaces or in the source code_only available in FOSS) while programmable templates refer to parametric templates that allow you modify on the fly and it reflects in both 2D Drafts and 3D Models. Parametric modeling is a whole new level game changer as this enables one-click iteration to reflect across over 100 variable inputs in both 2D Drafts and 3D Models. Internationally, this has quietly become the industry standards in engineering CAD design and where this is especially useful is in conjunction with programming and coding. 

One can systematically build an entire toolset necessary for a full manufacturing chain and implement every single phase on the fly and a parametric design and simulation, including animation.

Practically Speaking: A manufacturing company designing a custom machine bracket may use FreeCAD to create the parametric 3D model, another CAD program to refine the assembly, and a separate drafting tool to produce manufacturing drawings. A programmed template controls dimensions such as hole spacing, material thickness, and bracket length. Changing one parameter automatically updates the 3D model, assembly, and 2D drawing. The same template can then generate different bracket sizes for production, while simulation software checks performance before manufacturing. One can run this on a whole new level as a single large scale parametric project that set up once to reuse across multiple projects, where you only change parameters and the entire design and simulation is built up from scratch, ground-up, and is moving on the fly.

‎VERSION CONTROL AND PLM FOR TEAMS

Version Control in the design phase is a very interesting world of its own. Imagine having ideas and wanting to implement all of them simultaneously, buy unfortunately, mutually exclusive events begin to downplay, two events that cannot coexist in the same place at the same time. Version control, made to enable multiple workers keep track of their design across different fields and professions could do a magical trick here. You can start your design in one phase, when you get an idea, quite incompatible with the one you are implementing, you run a version control to enable you go back in time and create a different timeline, another stream of design production. 

And how exactly is this particularly helpful to us, it is because societal changes occur anywhere, randomly and we see these changes in bits and fragments. We can version control to enable us to go back to a phase in the design which could help us adapt from that point to the new changing and evolving society. This way, our designs never run out of time and is always ever present in time, fitting into every present and future ever changing custom, culture and tradition. Man will always evolve, whatever refuses to evolve with man will be phased out of time.

‎TESTING AND VALIDATION BEFORE PRODUCTION

Prototyping, a feature that never leaves engineers. And this is where the game changes a lot for this new batch design process. Virtual prototyping and simulation is your go to tool for enough, adequate and affirmative results before going ahead to begin physical prototyping of your tooling and machining. In the virtual prototyping stage, you test for the full, complete and entire manufacturing process using the batch tooling and machining designed for each specific batch. You practically build the entire manufacturing plant and systems virtually and run the simulation tests over the full lifespan expectancy of the new batch series. After your results are got, you run extra feasibility studies with slight iteration changes to simulate the real life variables of events and also foresee unexpected outcomes of life. Once the virtual prototyping is complete, you build a small mini-scale sized factory for real life prototyping to compare the virtual analysis to real life analysis and forecast expectancies when the full manufacturing process begins.

However, during your entire design and prototyping phase you should bear in mind that validity of every custom tooling per batch as this always has an upfront cost during each change, so the expected lifespan should be calculated over a moderate period of time to cover of for the huge upfront costs and rather not done over short bursts series of batch production as it would inconsequentially make the financial burdens unbearable for the company. Batch Tooling and Machining should be treated as part of a planned life cycle of a product, rather than automatically being treated as a permanent asset that must support every future design iteration. In real mass manufacturing, completely replacing tooling after every small batch can be extremely expensive. This approach makes the most sense when design changes are substantial, product volumes are planned, tooling has a finite economic life, or the expected revenue from the new series justifies the new tooling investment.

FEA, PROTOTYPING, AND DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS

When prototyping, your primary target should be to make sure that the new tooling and machining crosses the expected lifespan by a reasonable length of time and value of use throughout its life cycle. The reason for this is to ensure that there is full recovery of all expenses and maximisation of profits with reasonable length of time to allow for new tooling and machining to be designed and prototyped which then would finally be built and the old one will be phased out of the industrial process. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) should be used rather as a means of seeing through, in real-time the products natural stress, strain, deformation, load, yield point, as experienced while actively in the manufacturing process. So the simulation should run a Mini Manufacturing Plant with complete manufacturing life cycle using the prototyped tooling and machining. This makes sure that the Mechanical Properties, Structural Response, Constitutive Behaviour and Loading Effects of the prototypes can be studied not from an isolated analysis but in-the-process analysis.

Design of Experiments refer to the planning of physical prototyping after the virtual prototyping. During the design phase, your model should be something that one will not stress himself about when he wants to build his physical prototype, as to where to begin the manufacturing as every member part of the model must and should be readily available in the market and easy to build with available resources, equipments and labour. This alone narrows down the type of design and manufacturing any said company should involve himself with as your target audience and expected revenue would define your source location for raw materials, resources, equipments and labour. This setup would give you a clearer path as to what design to make for manufacturing and the tooling and machining best suited for that specific design.

AVOIDING COSTLY LATE-STAGE CHANGES

A late-stage change is one where the extended longevity of industrial tooling and machining was not accounted for and the consequential impact is that when the lifespan has been exhausted and its consideration was not taken into account, the tooling and machining begin to fail while actively in the manufacturing process and all work-in-progress goods become catastrophically damaged and labourers on-site can be severely injured from rapid reaction and effects of damaged equipments. Burdensome impact of replacement of tooling and machining, purchase of new raw materials and resources for new products, and medical and health expenses on labourers on-site. All these could be avoided if the earlier given information in this article is followed sequentially.

In a situation where it has already happened, remediation is the next paramount order of execution. Let us be factual here, pouring in a huge lump sum of funds to revive that entire manufacturing process would rather be seen and considered as chasing the wind as its damages are already downplaying upon the company. A rather safer approach is for the company to channel its funds to an entirely different category of products it already manufactures and follows the manufacturing process the right way, this time avoiding all his previous mistakes. The aim is to make more sales to quickly recover the lost funds and reinvest back into this lost privilege and revive it. Pouring money directly into the damaged products would not in any way revive the product line but will cripple both that line of products and the other line of products where the money was gotten from to revive the damaged line.

SELLING MECHANICAL DESIGN AS A SERVICE

A designer who rather prefers to be a backbone for manufacturers by supplying them with industry-ready designs from which manufacturing can be kick-started without the company having to focus on the stressful design analysis and iteration but rather follows an already documented path, is one smart move to speed up the overall worldwide approach to manufacturing. This system would encourage solo engineers, who have no capital or funds to start a manufacturing business, to build a community of trusted and trustworthy designers who build industry-ready and virtually and physically prototyped designs with detailed write-ups, images and video documentations for easy consumption by manufacturers.

However, there are things to bear in mind when going full-time designer as an individual or an Engineering Design Company. Your Market Base and Your Customer Endpoints. Your Market Base are people in desirous need of what you can offer and offering what is in current demand of. You do not seek what is actively in demand as those things actively in demand are transient and you may not meet up with the requirements before they phase out. If you have the requirements at the instance and period of active demand, then go for them, else, study the trend and build towards what will later phase in to be in demand. If you have the ability to offer anything in service, you can either build a name for yourself by building your brand around what you are capable of or you build yourself as an inference endpoint that when people need something to patch up or add to their needs, you can readily offer it using what you are currently good at. Your Customer Endpoints is your office or your store or both, it refers to how your customers can contact you and get your designs, it is essentially your contact point. A physical office is good in building business trust to local residents but an online store is preferable for larger market reach. A simple approach to both is to start you physical office at your current residence. If you can not make any money in your house, you also can not make money when you acquire an office via rentage or lease, you would only end up placing a financial burden upon yourself. If you choose an online store, I would recommend you get started with a social media account paired with an Official Storefront Hosted By A Payment Gateway. Using officially hosted storefronts by payment gateways offer a free and cheap online store for you with no usage limits and hosting costs compared to acquiring web hosted online stores which offer no free version or free versions with hard caps limits, or compared with you hosting the online store yourself. If you insist on hosting yourself you can go for free websites and blogs which offer access to HTML code base of their website to customise it to do what you want. From here you design your own store with custom hosting and branding. Overall, I would recommend you use a payment gateway because all payments go straight to your bank accounts rather than using third-party stores that would collect a certain percentage from every sale you make.

PRICING PER PROJECT VS RETAINER FOR STARTUPS

Pricing model should not give you headache, after having gone through all the previously aforementioned factors for a successful design to manufacturing in this article, mere pricing on how to earn from your designs should not be problematic. You can either settle your pricing model at Per Project or Retainer depending on which is comfortable for you. Per Project entails you are a sole entity and are not liable to anyone. Whoever needs your services contacts you, and you execute and payment is completed. Retainer on the other hand entails you become an ad-hoc staff upon which agreement covers duration and payment schedule over a period of time as well as working conditions and project limit over the period of agreement.

For Pricing Per Project, here are few simple pricing models, modify them even better to suit your needs.

1. Rendering design services in order of project executions done and charging per execution (makes scaling easier as manufacturers pay for only the design execution necessary for them).
2. Making full scale design with full detailing and selling it off (makes design holistic and complete as nothing extra would be required in addition once design is purchased).
3. Making full scale design but selling whole fragments of the entire design (makes manufacturers who do not have money for an entire design to buy that full design in batches).

For Retainer Pricing, here are some sample pricing models. Customise as deemed fit.

1. Agreement on fixed number of projects with fixed payment per project workload, having conditional timeframe, where the priority is number of projects but if they decide to stretch project duration, you terminate after a specific timeframe (this gives you control over the value of input and workload committed).
2. Agreement on fixed timeframe and fixed payment (this gives you an upper hand over your time and money but they can give you as much workload as they want within the given timeframe).
3. Agreement on fixed workload and fixed time (employers are bound to make payment offers appealing to you and you get control over your input and time).

PORTFOLIO THAT WIN B2B CLIENTS

A lion is not a lion because it goes around telling other animals within the jungle that it is a lion but because of the charisma it carries. Let us get your engineering charisma that gives you a steady stream of income. Priority to have in mind is not income magnitude but fixed and steady customers. Someone who always comes back, then you know that food will always be on the table. Whatever method you use to get your first customer, establish it to retain the customer and develop it to scale and get more customers. This is your portfolio that makes sure you never run out of clients who are in demand of your services. This portfolio should be visible in you, your office, your online store, your social media accounts, everywhere and everything that radiates your presence should follow this pattern.

A simple charisma worth establishing and developing is that you know your niche. Develop yourself to be a professional in the niche you specialise in. Expand your territory that your appearance, your office, your online store, your social media accounts, everywhere and everything that radiates your presence, carry and showcase your expertise in that niche you specialise in such that visual appearance of you speaks first before you speak. Tame your tongue. Your speech should be mannered in favour to elevate people rather than elevate yourself above people. Present your knowledge, skill and expertise in such that would make people and their respective businesses progress as a result of their encounter with you. And finally, execute as promised. What you claim to offer, be totally capable of rendering such at full maximum capacity and potential.