Product & part engineering

Design for manufacturing: cost is decided at the design stage.

DFM ensures products are cost-effective, easy to produce, and consistently reliable. Correcting issues during the design phase costs very little. Resolving the same issues after tooling is built costs a fortune.

Stackable bottle crate designed for injection moulding
Why early

Changes must be found at the beginning of the development cycle.

Changes identified early can have a large effect and cost little. Design flaws found later are hard to implement and expensive.

In injection moulding the mould is a substantial investment, so changes should be settled before mould design and construction start.

What you receive

Final Mold Design with a list of the correcions/modifications agreed with the toolmaker and integrated in the mold desegn.

Impact of a design change falls and its cost rises through the development phases PartdesignMoulddesignMouldbuildSamplingProduction Impact of change Cost of change
The later a change is made, the less it can improve the product and the more it costs.
Any process

In depth where we are experts. With your supplier everywhere else.

Expert level

Injection-moulded parts and assemblies

During DfM for a moulded part we study in detail:

  • Mould steel quality
  • Opening direction of mould and slides
  • Parting line
  • Sub-inserts
  • Ejector type and position
  • Weak spots in the mould
  • Filling and cooling
  • Gates and runner system
  • Number of cavities
  • Surface quality
  • Dimensional and geometric tolerances
  • Warpage, sink marks, weld lines

For assemblies: snap-fits, ultrasonic welding, screws and threaded inserts, and how each joining method affects the part design.

With the supplier

Sheet metal, rubber, die-casting, machining and more

We apply the general design rules of each process and communicate directly with your supplier on the technical details, so the drawing that reaches the shop is one it can make at the right cost.

Materials and demanding applications

Long experience with commodity polymers, engineering thermoplastics (polycarbonate, polyamides, flame-retardant and glass-reinforced polyesters) and extreme materials such as PEEK or PVDF. Advice on electrical safety, outdoor weathering, airtightness and flame retardancy.

Discuss your engineering problem.

Tell us what you are developing, changing or trying to fix. We first look at the engineering question, then say plainly what is worth doing: a calculation, a design review, a test, a simulation, or a combination.

Free first discussion Scoped to the question NDA on request