Have you tried to get a bad surprise when you ordered parts?
It can sometimes be easy to order parts, thinking you know perfectly well how the parts are going to be produced. After all you are the mechanical engineer, you should know, right?
Sometimes it happens, that we think we know everything about how our parts are going to be manufactured, but sometimes we are wrong.
It could be that the parts end up costing a lot more than estimated or the finish of the parts are not as expected. There is a great tool that can mitigate for this. It was invented in 1876 and it’s called a phone.
Call Your Manufacturer
Have you tried talking to your manufacturer? Oftentimes they are nice people.
It is good practice to add as much info as possible to you drawings; in how the part should function and how it should be manufactured, but sometimes things can be hard to explain on a drawing. Sometimes the manufacturer got a new tool or machine that means they can manufacture your part cheaper, faster and/or more precise or with a better finish.
When you don’t call your manufacturer, you won’t learn these things. And that’s a shame. It will improve your design tremendously if you on a regular basis talk to your manufacturer as you will learn about their capabilities. Maybe you had one manufacturer in mind, but maybe he is not the right one for this job, but he might be perfect instead for making another part?
All of these benefits you will harvest if you occasionally speak to your different manufacturers. Are you staying on top of new trends in manufacturing? This you will also learn by talking to your manufacturers.
You will also improve your relationship with the manufacturer, avoiding WTF-moments for the manufacturer when he is producing your next part.
The manufacturer might have some valuable input for changes to your design to improve it.
Calling the manufacturer while you are designing a new part or before you push the buy button is a low-hanging fruit that will improve your design skills and that will save you time in the end, because you will be more likely to get the part as intended and not as interpreted.
We know it’s nothing fancy software for optimizing your parts for DFM or DFA, but sometimes the simple and old-school methods, when used right, can add more value than a software with a beautiful interface that says it can do it all.
Instead of calling your manufacturer, you can also call Mortex Consulting to talk about how we can help you with improving your manufacturability (DFM/DFA) of your parts.
Phone: +45 42 64 87 66
Email: Andreas@mortex.dk
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