Developing successful products in today's competitive global environment requires more than an innovative design. The most elegant, inventive design will not succeed if a company cannot manufacture, assemble, and maintain it at a profit. As most veteran designers know, the interplay between design and manufacturing ?identifying and resolving manufacturing issues early, including prudent trade-offs between performance and production requirements ?is critically important to a product's success.
Manufacturers used to have more flexibility to accommodate iterations between design and manufacturing: time and cost demands were less pressing, and design and manufacturing personnel were often co-located, making collaboration more efficient. Today, however, the need to accelerate time-to-market and squeeze costs out of product development, combined with greater levels of geographically removed or offshore manufacturing, has created additional challenges for spotting and addressing production issues upfront.
Fortunately, new capabilities that assess design for manufacturability/design for assembly (DFM/DFA) features in 3D CAD software can help engineers address manufacturing and assembly issues as part of design, preventing delays and cost overruns during production.
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