Truly comprehensive metal fabrication services go way beyond the raw manufacturing of the end products. At S&W, quality fabrication and design go hand in hand as an integrated process.
While metal forming, cutting, machining and welding form the core of our custom fabrication services, design expertise is likewise crucial to achieve high-quality end products that fit and perform as expected. Optimizing product design for manufacturability can also reduce your material usage and help keep costs in check.
That’s why S&W’s end-to-end fabrication services include complete product development assistance and product design optimization.
Designing Your Products for Optimum Fabrication Results:
Optimizing Your Material Selection
Different metals have distinct mechanical properties such as hardness, ductility, and thermal conductivity. That’s especially true when comparing completely different metal types such as steel and aluminum. However, even different grades or alloys of the same metal can have drastically different physical and mechanical properties.
Optimizing the material selection for your products means choosing materials that not only meet performance criteria but also provide seamless compatibility with our fabrication processes to follow. For many projects, it also means considering the cost and availability of the materials to meet your budget requirements.
Optimizing Your Design Tolerances
It’s no secret that tighter tolerances tend to increase fabrication complexity and production costs. For many of S&W’s complex products, extremely close tolerances are simply unavoidable. However, design for manufacturability encourages the relaxing of tolerances wherever possible without compromising the functionality of the end product.
By optimizing your product tolerances we can reduce your basic production costs and also minimize the need for expensive secondary operations like precision grinding or additional CNC machining.
Minimizing Part Complexity
Likewise, Simpler designs lead to fewer fabrication steps and lower risk of error. Again, complex designs and intricate part features are often the name of the game. Nevertheless, design for manufacturability promotes the use of standard features, modular designs, and/or multifunctional parts to reduce part count and simplify assembly.
Ease of Welding, Joining, and Assembly
Complex assemblies often require welding or mechanical fastening. Optimizing your product designs means optimizing joint design for accessibility. That facilitates easier welding processes to follow for lower costs and higher quality. Optimized welding joints helps us minimize distortion, ensuring strong and consistent welds, especially when working with dissimilar metals and/or complex shapes.
How S&W Optimizes Your Product Designs
Beyond translating your product ideas to manufacturable specifications, S&W can help refine your designs for manufacturability – potentially improving end quality and/or reducing costs.
Our product design, development, and engineering expertise includes:
- Solidworks
- Autocad
- Bystronic ByCAM – Laser cutting and press brake software
- Hurco MAX 5 – Console and desktop software
- Merry Mech CAD/CAM – Laser cutting and turret punch software
Quality American Fabrication Solutions Since 1946
From design optimization to quality fabrication, S&W brings your products to life. Our company develops comprehensive contract manufacturing solutions which optimize your end products for cost, quality, and speed of delivery.
