How To Reduce The Cost Of Manufacturing During CNC Lathing

How you can keep your cost of manufacturing as low as possible. Putting aside the obvious one of sending your parts off to a provider with a lower cost of manufacturing, the following advice deals with more practical solutions that will work anywhere in the world. 

# Don’t Skip The Consultation Process #

Few designers are experts in many if any of the production processes that they have to deal with daily, and that’s completely understandable; therefore, they should interact as early and as often as possible with experts at their intended suppliers. Before even designing any components, it’s a good idea to discuss the product concept with several manufacturers and see what processes they think might suit the application. Then, after further consultation, you can decide how best to design each component to best suit the manufacturing process itself. The projects that go off the rails are the ones where parts were designed without consultation, and sometimes even without any manufacturing process in mind at the outset. That is very dangerous.

# Design To The Quantity You Require #

Quantity drives which process you may use and how to design the parts. The higher the quantity, the more money you can put into the mold tools for CNC machining. If you’re making millions of parts, the amortized cost of a very sophisticated mold tool is extremely low; but if you only want a few thousand parts per year, you’ve got to keep the cost of tooling down, and maybe accept a higher piece price.

# Think Accuracy Not Precision #

When a precision-machinist does not own very good machines, it is difficult to make precision parts. But you could look for ways to make the assembly accurate without having to make the parts super precise. Now that sounds like a contradiction, right? Let us give you an extreme example: Wouldn’t you have thought that by now you could make a car that doesn’t need wheel alignment before leaving the factory? If the tie molds were accurate enough, if the rubber was consistent enough, if the steering assembly was precise enough; surely you wouldn’t need to align the wheels immediately after the factory assembly? Well, you probably could, but the car would cost significantly more to make. This is an extreme example of tolerance stacking. You also need to adjust your wheel alignment. 

# Standardization Of Components To Minimize Production Costs #

Standardize manufactured parts to minimize production costs The decrease in manufacturing costs is rendered in terms of components and raw materials Build-to-Order and Mass Customisation. Standardization embraces a simple principle of complementary and mass customization, in that all products must be usable at all points of use, removing configuration for locating, loading, and or kit parts. Standardization simplifies the flow of pieces into the assembly by reducing the number of part forms instead of ordering and waiting. Fewer orders in greater volumes of components would reduce the operating costs of parts and material. Additional advantages include decreases in floor size, cost overhead, and savings in installation, logistics, and maintenance of the supply chain. The expense may also include equipment, features, raw materials, and procedures for other forms of standardization.

Well, that’s all for the ways we can help you reduce the cost of manufacturing during CNC lathing, and click HERE to see more.