Reduce Costs Through Design Optimization

Several factors affect the design of a product including the function of the product;

the complexity of the product; how long it will take to get it to the marketplace; the tools, design, and engineering of the product; staff experience in product manufacturing; the environment the product is being manufactured in; product competition in the market; and of course product manufacturing costs. Manufacturing design centers on a group of skilled workers with various specialties working together to identify solutions to optimize designs and costs.

One course of action in cost control is to keep a design simple. 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 relationship between cost and having to produce more pieces for a product. Costs increase if a product must be kept in stock in case of a break down, for example. 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 their 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 driven down because inventories do not become too large with many different parts. Design simplicity is the best way for engineers to keep costs at their lowest.

Oftentimes manufacturing is not done in house but is done on an outsourced basis so there is not as much control of costs in the manufacturing environment. That is why it is so important to have the design team and the manufacturing in the same location. The design team needs to have a firm grasp of how the manufacturing process works so that it can find ways to reduce costs. The main reason for outsourcing is cost savings but oftentimes this causes other problems such as slowing down the delivery of the product to the consumer.

Working with customers and their needs may lead to finding ways to cut costs such as finding that a less expensive, alternative material would be a viable choice in manufacturing a product for them. Another cost-cutting method is to work with another company to get a supply for both companies at a bulk discount. Cost savings can be found only through opening the lines of communication with companies and customers. 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. Analyses and changes can be done on the design in the software before any money was wasted or manufacturing was done. Another software tool for manufacturing is Autodesk Inventor, which allows for design simulation under real-world circumstances.

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.

by: Marc Anderes.

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