PRODUCTION
A cornerstone in the design process is knowing what works in production and assembly
Working close to prototype testing and production is highly benificial for understanding all steps in the product life cycle, and helps evaluating conceptual directions early on in the design process.
Knowing what screw sizes to use, tolerances and limits of different production methods, what processes are best kept manual and where automation gives the best value.
Getting an intuitive understanding of materials, strengths, processes, time consumptions and risks allows a designer to manage product economics from early on in development - a requirement in competitive product development projects.
Prototyping: A combination of FDM prototype plastic mounted to test how a die-cast aluminium part assembles with sheetmetal parts. Although plastic does not test the strength of aluminium, experience-based evaluation can ensure that the part strength is tested well enough to continue into tooling.
Large metal structures: Both sand casted aluminium and the welding process induces large variations.
A laser-cut sheetmetal jig is a simple way to get tolerances down to as little as ±1mm even with large parts such as this
Casted tolerances: Here the original CAD file (green) is shown together with a scan of a casted sample showing tolerance problems where missing ribs creates large deformations during cooling.
Cleaning up your own mistakes:
Being able to build your own prototypes is important for understanding all aspects of a product, and also helps a lot to build a team when several people work together on the development