Designing for manufacturing is a difficult task. It needs full attention, consideration, and expertise, and you have to give much time to think and finally manufacture beautifully designed products. If you don’t design suitable products for manufacturing, it wastes both your time and money.
So, it is important to consider various aspects while designing the products for manufacturing. It will provide you with your desired products and save you energy, time, and money. While designing for manufacturing, some mistakes are very common, and it is very important to avoid them. Following are some ways by which you can avoid making mistakes while designing.
1.By Taking the Proper Information and Knowledge about the Machinery
The lack of proper knowledge and information is one of the biggest mistakes you make while designing for manufacturing. You must have a detailed knowledge of your machine’s limitations and working ways. If you don’t have proper and whole information about your machinery, then you cannot design it properly, and it is just wastage of time to manufacture it. Having proper information helps you design and avoids mistakes when designing for manufacturing. So try to get in touch with the latest news and discoveries to know the basic demand and trends of the manufacturing market.
2.By Permitting the Aesthetics to Hinder Manufacturing Unreasonably
You can avoid mistakes when designing for manufacturing by allowing the aesthetics to hinder unnecessary manufacturing. It is necessary to avoid making heavy aesthetic features difficult to handle during the manufacturing process. Similarly, other factors that are not much important should be neglected while designing. While designing, manufacturing heavy, intricate, and unnecessary aesthetic features is the biggest mistake. It will allow the machinery to work improperly and waste time and money.
So it would help if you tried to skip these features while designing for manufacturing to make more valuable products.
3.By Using Feature Sizes and Non-Standard Material
You can avoid mistakes in manufacturing by using non-standard material and features sizes when designing. You should use a non-standard material to design your machinery to avoid mistakes. Moreover, using a feature size tool in designing your machinery is also compulsory. For example, if you want to drill the holes in a part of the machinery, don’t use common drills. It may drill holes that are larger or smaller than the required sizes. So, it may cause defects in machinery. Always use standard sizes of tools while designing your machinery to avoid mistakes.
4.By Designing the Features that are Easy to Manufacture
The most common mistake that the manufacturer makes during designing the machinery is designing the very difficult features to manufacture. Sometimes you may choose difficult and complex designs to manufacture the machinery, but it’s better to avoid unnecessary intricate and complex features and designs. Designing such complex features may take much more time and energy. You may also fail to design such features because they are impossible to manufacture, failing your designing process. It would be best to use simple designs that are easy to handle and function properly. During the manufacturing process, you should also use features that are not easily breakable so that your machinery can work properly for a long time.
5.By avoiding Tall and Thin-walled Material
The biggest mistake you should avoid during the designing process is tall and thin-walled material for designing different machinery parts. The thin-walled parts may bend when little force is applied to them. It may also cause the breakage of the machine parts, resulting in machinery breakage. You should use thick-walled and rigid material while designing the machinery. The thick-walled rigid material doesn’t break due to the applied force. Moreover, the machinery made with such material is more reliable and works longer than the thin-walled material. Avoiding this mistake can avoid both your time and energy.
6.By Avoiding the Small and the Raised Text on Machinery
Adding text is also an important part of designing when manufacturing. The text can be in the form of a company logo, description, or a number or you may add the desired text of your choice on the component. The text on the machinery may look cool, but you should be selective about the size of the text you will add to your machinery. Most manufacturers think that adding a smaller text to your machinery costs less than larger text. But, it is not true. The smaller text means high cost. The small endmills cut smaller text. The small endmills work at a very low speed, thus taking more time resulting in a more cost. On the other hand, the larger text is cut down easily and quickly, thus reducing the cost. So, by avoiding small text, you can avoid mistakes when manufacturing.
7.By Avoiding the Features that Need Unnecessary Machining
The biggest mistake that the manufacturer makes in designing is the addition of features that require unnecessary machining. Adding unnecessary features results in extra material for designing and results in high costs. If you avoid adding such features, you don’t have to add extra material in designing the machinery. So, it saves both the material and the money.
8.Lack of Consumer Research
Neglecting your customer advice is also among the biggest mistakes in designing the machinery.
Your customers’ choice should be your priority. You should have a complete idea of your customer’s choices and ideas. Designing the machinery according to the customer’s advice will make your customer happy due to the exact design and prevent you from regretting it.
Final Thoughts
Mistakes and complex designs when manufacturing machinery are common, and you should avoid these mistakes. These mistakes in designing can lead to serious damage and loss of machinery. So, avoiding these mistakes is necessary to design the machinery perfectly and prevent any loss and damage. The ways mentioned above help you prevent these mistakes and prove helpful in saving your time, energy, and money.