Design for Manufacturability

At Plymouth Spring we encourage conversations with customer engineers early in the design process. Even though we do not design the finished part itself, we are able to offer value-added part design considerations that greatly enhance price, performance, and delivery.

Here are 10 tips for maximizing part design for manufacturability.

1. Plan a visit and shop tour of the facility. Gain insight into our various manufacturing processes. Allow our engineers and your engineers the opportunity to meet in person and start working together.
2. Consider bringing mating assembly components during your visit. Mating assemblies offer invaluable insight into the fit, function, and intended use of the metal part that needs to be manufactured. Chances are we can also assemble the product for you.
3. Discuss ideas with Plymouth Springs engineers to incorporate mistake-proofing features on the part to prevent orientation errors in the next process or assembly stage.
4. Discuss ideas with Plymouth Spring engineers to minimize handling. Examples include the potential of automatic packaging at the machine or adding a hole or bump for greater finishing efficiency.
5. If the part already has a history by requires a supplier change. Provide Plymouth Spring with past samples and inspection reports for the evaluation of potential process improvements.
6. Consider all raw material options. The current market price, availability, temper, etc. of the selected raw material can greatly impact final product cost, performance, and delivery.
7. Agree on inspection methods upfront. Consider inspection fixtures for constraint replication of assemblies and agree on datum surfaces for free state inspection. Plymouth Spring operates non-contact video inspection systems that are suitable for most inspection requirements.
8. Discuss ideas with Plymouth Spring engineers to make the parts multi-functional. Parts with multi-functional purposes reduce the number of parts needed to complete an assembled product.
9. Discuss ideas with Plymouth Spring engineers to make the parts have multiple uses. Parts designed with multi-uses can have features that satisfy one part and another feature that satisfies another. This reduces the number of parts needed to complete multi-component assembly projects.
10. Conduct a complete review of expectations and future plans such as estimated volumes, approval processes, cleanliness, corrosion resistance, and delivery requirements. Plymouth Spring can set up JIT/Kanban delivery programs so that you have the parts arrive ready to use, at the right time, and at the right location.