Design for Manufacture

Modelling for manufacture is a term used when a manufacturing engineer prepares a model usually produced by an external or internal design department to ensure machinability. It is a well-known fact that not every design engineer understands the manufacturing process required to produce accurate parts from a CAD model just as, not every manufacturing engineer understands the best practice design methodology of any specific mechanical design package or design principle. However, these two roles do cross paths regularly, whether it be two separate departments or a combined design/manufacturing engineer job role. Common modelling for manufacture workflows could include the following:

Repairing Model Data
Making the model more manufacturable
Creating Tooling Models
Creating accurate stock models
Adding commonly used Fixtures and Work Holding devices and accurately locating them
Model new features, direct model editing or deletion of unwanted features
Representation of real-world set up in a digital environment is crucial for accurate machine simulation

If any of these challenges resonate with you or are areas of concern in your current manufacturing processes, Symetri can help you to make informed decisions as to the available solutions to suit your needs.

Lack of communication internally and externally
Data Collaboration problems
No revision control in place
No interaction from manufacturing at the design/concept stage
No communication with Manufacturing causing indicated errors by manufacturing never to flow back to design
Manufacturing has their own data store, which is never seen by design
Only after manufacturing see the design do they have any input in the overall design/concept
CAD models and drawings are never updated to reflect changes that manufacturing have made

CAD

Computer-Aided Design is now a very common phrase discussed by design, engineering and manufacture. The use of CAD is significant in the early prototyping stages of design. Computer technology has now given designers and engineers the ability to test before manufacture, building confidence in design before making timely and costly mistakes. CAD documentation has now advanced to higher levels of communication between different design and engineering departments. The use of CAD is now universal and can eliminate errors in various applications of manufacturing processes.

Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering is a process where products are deconstructed to reveal exact designs. The process is the opposite of traditional design where the need is to find out how the design was made. This can be done using measuring equipment to gather information about the design to create a 3D object of the design using CAD software. This process can be used to produce new information about old designs which may not have ever been digitised in the past.

Scanning

Laser scanning accompanies the use of reverse engineering with the ability to collect crucial surface data about objects. These objects derive from many industries. Different types of scanning can aid manufacturing, construction and fabrication. Laser scans can be handheld, free standing for terrestrial scans or unmanned aerial vehicles for studying the landscape. One thing that is common in all these industries, is the importance of data capture and the ability to re-use this data in collaboration with laser scanning.

Simulation

For your company to remain competitive today and in the future, you need to empower designers and engineers with easy-to-use simulation tools. You can use simulation tools for the design and stress analysis of aeronautical equipment to heavy mining machines in FEA to cooling of defence-critical equipment and huge transformers in CFD.

Read more about the Simulation and Generative Design tools

Frequently asked Questions

Yes, you have access to l CAD, CAM, and CAE in the Product Design & Manufacturing Collection.

To become more productive, it maybe is of interest to have your staff trained in the use of CAD data during the design for manufacture stage, Symetri can provide training please see here (training link) or alternatively, you can contact the file originator and ask them to make the changes for you. Autodesk Inventor and Fusion 360 are AnyCAD capable meaning you can reference in your AnyCAD data, please contact us for more information on this workflow.

You have access to InventorCAM and can start to generate the required machining strategies needed to manufacture your part. However, Fusion360 CAM has more functionality than InventorCAM and is updated regularly with further UpToDate machining strategies. Not only that, but InventorCAM models will also transfer into Fusion360CAM without translation errors, which in turn offers more flexibility within the workplace as Fusion360 can be accessed on any machine with a valid sign-in.

With Autodesk Fusion 360 Team, you and your entire team can work together efficiently. A team is a collection of people creating and accessing design data for a project. This design data could be Fusion 360 files, other CAD formats, PDF files, Excel files images and other files types. Anyone with an Autodesk account and access to Fusion Team can create one team and be a member of multiple teams. Users can create share links that are sent to collaborators for viewing design data.

You need to create a team. If you have access to a team already you will be given access to projects by the administrator and roles within that Team.

Single user storage you don’t need a full admin process so you just store your files into the single-user storage and share using likes to the Autodesk Viewer Online.

For more information take a look at our blog - Getting started with Fusion 360

Cloud credits are the unit of measurement required to perform certain tasks, such as creating a rendering, running a simulation, or setting up a generative study in a cloud environment using Autodesk cloud services. Cloud credits expire one year after the date of purchase or when the contract expires, whichever comes first.

Extensions are a grouping of capabilities that can be added to Fusion 360 to provide additional functionality and subsequent benefits to users. They can be enabled in-product using Autodesk Cloud Credits/Tokens or through Autodesk direct sales and channel partners

You can perform various types of simulation within Fusion 360 to simulate your products digitally, reducing the cost of prototyping by using fully validated solvers.

These include cloud simulation, static stress, thermal stress, non-linear stress and event simulation