Right off the bat I think of two main differences between designing a product and designing machine tools.<\/p>\n
TIME and DIMENSIONS<\/p>\n
TIME <\/strong><\/p>\n Product Design Time <\/strong><\/p>\n When designing a product there may be numerous design reviews, you may spend a whole year or longer between conception to tweaking the design, testing it for market appeal, functionality, safety, costs\u2026 the list can go on.\u00a0 And many of these reviews don\u2019t happen just once.<\/p>\n Then, when the product gets very close to completion, the manufacturing team starts planning for production.\u00a0 What parts will be assembled at what stations.\u00a0 And the Manufacturing Engineers and Managers start working on planning the design of the production machines.<\/p>\n Machine Tool Design Time<\/strong><\/p>\n Once the product is getting close to release for production, there is a rush to get the machines, designed, built, and tested fast.\u00a0 The time line for a Machine can be as little as 1 month. \u00a0Some of the more simple tools are created on the fly as the product moves into production and the need is discovered.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With Machine Tool Designs there may be only one or two design reviews.\u00a0 There is no need to make it look nice for the consumer, though safety and functionality are part of the design and review process.\u00a0 The whole machine design process doesn\u2019t require as much time or as much… “going back to the drawing board”.\u00a0 (For those of you who are too young to have ever seen a drawing board, what I mean is in my experience there isn’t as much re-design occuring in machine tool design as in product design.<\/em>)<\/p>\n DIMENSIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n One thing I hear from those who move over to machine tool design from product design is that in machine design the available stock size matters<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n With each new manufactured part you need to think about using nice numbers so that the part can be manufactured easily with the least number of surfaces having to be finished.<\/p>\n A machine tool designer is always looking up stock sizes<\/strong>.\u00a0 And every time the designer has to change the size of a part they have to think about stock sizes<\/strong> and which surfaces will need to be finished.<\/p>\n When a machine designer can avoid finishing a surface, he\/she saves build time and material, reducing the costs of the machine.\u00a0 So we must always check our stock sizes, and try to make the mounting surfaces stock dimensions<\/strong>. This way we avoid having to machine a nice mounting surface if we don’t have to.<\/p>\n When a piece of metal is saw cut, the surface is very rough and may not be square to the other surfaces.\u00a0 So mounting surfaces need to be stock or finished in most all applications.<\/p>\n Hot Rolled Steel<\/strong> is so rough even as stock, it needs to have all it’s mounting surfaces finished.\u00a0 We use Hot Rolled Steel for weldments only<\/strong>, and cut a minimum of a 1\/8 inch off the stock size to make a nice finished surface for mounting other parts onto.\u00a0 We still make every effort to consider stock size when creating weld fixture parts.<\/p>\n Two companies that we refer to a lot to find out what stock sizes are available are Central Steel<\/strong> and McMaster Carr.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So Product Design vs Machine Tool Design.\u00a0 If you have experience in both, what differences have you <\/strong><\/span>noticed?<\/p>\n RECEIVE a FREE Quick-reference Tool on Dowel Holes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Anyone who signs up for \u201cEducation and Updates\u201d \u2026 in April 2012 \u2026.by filling out the form on the right-hand side of the Rentapen web site will receive in their email Rentapen\u2019s Quick Reference Guide to Tolerances for Dowel holes.\u00a0 This is a handy item to keep on your desk top.\u00a0 So sign up today for \u201cEducation and Updates\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0We email updates when we issue or new blog or press release (about twice a week).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What are the two main differences between product design and machine tool design? Right off the bat I think of two main differences between designing a product and designing machine tools. TIME and DIMENSIONS TIME Product Design Time When designing a product there may be numerous design reviews, you may \u2026 Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.rentapen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Calendar.jpg\" "\\"Calendar\\"")
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\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>http:\/\/www.centralsteel.com<\/a>\u00a0 for cold and hot rolled steel and aluminum and sheet metal.\u00a0 They have angles, tubes, rounds also.<\/p>\n<\/a> http:\/\/www.mcmaster.com<\/a> for harder steels or other metals not found in the Central Steel catalog such as A2\u00a0 and 4140 PH (Pre-hardened).<\/p>\n