Design Optimization and Manufacturing Cost Reduction

Many points affect the design of a product including the function of the product; the intricacy of the product; how long it will take to get it to the marketplace; product design, engineering, and tools used; the experience level of the staff producing the final product; the manufacturing environment; product competition in the market; and of course the cost of the manufacturing of the product. Manufacturing design focuses on a team of people with various specialties working together to identify solutions to optimize designs and costs.

One way to keep costs down is to ensure that a design is not overly complicated. The more complexly a product is designed with and the more parts that it needs, the more expensive it gets to produce. There is a direct correlation between cost and the number of pieces of a product manufactured. More of these products would also have to be in stock if a part were to break down and need to be replaced, also increasing costs. Using off the shelf or original equipment manufacturer (OEM) components in designs is allows for efficiency in the time it takes to design since the design of the off the shelf component is already complete and the suppliers are experienced in the features of the product. The suppliers will continue to improve upon their product and can also be used as a resource. Using off the shelf components allows costs to manufacturers to be lessened since there is not a large inventory of a diverse amount of parts. The bottom line is that engineers should keep designs as simple as possible to keep costs low.

Manufacturing is often outsourced to another location, thus causing a loss of cost control for the outsourcer. That is why it imperative for the design team and manufacturing to be collocated. The design team needs to have a firm grasp of how the manufacturing process works so that it can find ways to reduce costs. Outsourcing is done primarily to cut costs but other problems can happen such as the slowing of product delivery to the end user.

Looking at customer needs may lead to finding ways to cut costs including finding an equivalent material for product manufacture that is less expensive. Another cost-cutting method is to work with another company to get a supply for both companies at a bulk discount. Communication with companies and customers is the only way to be able to take advantage of these cost-cutting opportunities. Another cost saving mechanism is that materials should be chosen that are compatible with the processes that will be used in the manufacturing environment and are compatible with the design of the product to be manufactured.

3D CAD software such as SolidWorks provides tools that allow for analyses to be conducted on designs to be able to tell if there are structural issues before the design is manufactured. This saves a significant amount of money as a designer or engineer can make the analyses and changes in the software before it goes to be manufactured and no money is lost. Autodesk Inventor is another manufacturing software tool used to simulate how a design will perform in a real scenario.

Cost savings is as important as the actual design and manufacturing of a product. Keeping costs low is essential to the success of a company and design optimization is one way that manufacturers can protect themselves from paying unnecessary costs in the product development process.

Marc Anderes is the VP of Operations of Maloya Laser which specializes in Metal Manufacturing and Laser Cutting with advanced laser technologies, servicing medical, aerospace, scientific and transportation needs.