Two Crucial Questions Every Design Engineer Should Ask (and How SOLIDWORKS Can Provide Answers)

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When design engineers and their designs are disconnected from the manufacturing process, it can create costly and time-consuming inefficiencies. For example, if a product design gets to the shop floor with incorrect dimensions or materials, the design might have to be reworked, resulting in wasted materials and costly production delays. Ensure that your design and manufacturing teams are on the same page by integrating them with SOLIDWORKS tools.

SOLIDWORKS provides the answers to two important questions you should ask during the design phase…

Is This Product Design Financially Viable?

There are a variety of factors that affect the overall cost of a manufacturing a product, such as materials and labor costs; which means even a seemingly simple change can have a big impact on the overall cost.

SOLIDWORKS Costing helps ensure there are no cost-related surprises when the product moves from the design phase to manufacturing. It allows designers, project managers and purchasing to monitor how the new product designs are tracking, from a cost-perspective, against their original target costs and assess the impact that any changes may have.

As an added advantage, SOLIDWORKS Costing works with native SOLIDWORKS models as well as models from other 3D CAD tools and neutral file formats such as IGES and STEP. Users can define different part materials, make design changes or change where the parts will be manufactured and instantly see the effects of these decisions on the unit cost of the part.

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Can This Design be Manufactured?

SOLIDWORKS enables product designers and mold makers to quickly and easily determine the manufacturability of their products through the use of simulation.

Complex mold designs change frequently during part development and the constant importing, exporting and reparation of data creates a high probability of errors and inaccuracies during data translation. Because of this, many mold designers tend to wait until the part design is “frozen” before they start tooling, which costs valuable design time.

With SOLIDWORKS, mold designers can validate whether parts can be molded successfully, including checking for draft, thickness and undercuts, to ensure the correct geometry for molding. They can also use SOLIDWORKS Plastics to simulate mold filling and determine the best gate locations, whether the part will fill correctly, where weld lines might form and possible sink locations.

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Integrating the design and manufacturing processes with SOLIDWORKS promotes effective communication between design and manufacturing teams throughout the entire development phase. In doing so, users can overcome the many challenges teams face, including disparate geographical locations and tools that doesn’t cross-communicate.

To learn more about the SOLIDWORKS advantage, download our free eBook by clicking banner below.

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Alyson Savelle

Alyson Savelle

Senior Manager, Brand Offer Marketing SOLIDWORKS guru; all things technology, sports aficionado, scuba-diver, snowboarder, photographer, traveler, book worm & movie junkie!
Alyson Savelle

@AlyOOOOOps

Alyson Savelle