Seeking to cut costs in the molding process? Don’t overlook the opportunity to improve profit margins by involving your processor early in part design, a practice known as “up-front engineering.”

Up-front engineering ensures robust part manufacturability, minimizes tooling costs, optimizes material selection, increase processing speeds … and generally leads to better and more cost-effective parts.

HOW UP-FRONT ENGINEERING SAVES MONEY

Keep it simple
The biggest cost-cutting opportunities derive from simplifying a part, such as by eliminating complicated surfaces.

Thinner is better
The thicker the part, the longer it takes to cool in the mold. Making a part thinner saves time and money.

Up-front engineering can help identify opportunities to core out a part. Identifying sections that can be hollow instead of solid not only reduces cooling time but also saves on material costs—a huge plus with resin prices on the rise.

Material selection
Experienced short-run molders can also save OEMs money by identifying less expensive, yet highly effective alternative materials during the design phase.

Thousands of resin choices and other factors can come into play. For instance, a part may need to withstand extreme temperatures or ultraviolet rays. Sharing these critical properties with a molding partner early on saves time down the road by avoiding material adjustments and performance issues.

HOW TO GET STARTED

Few OEMs have in-house mold makers who can add value with up-front engineering. So how can you establish an up-front engineering process?

The design process should include your product development team—usually the in-house project engineer and designer—and a project engineer from the molder.

At Donnelly Custom Manufacturing, our project engineers serve as integral members of our OEM customers’ engineering teams. For more than 20 years, we’ve specialized in short-run molding, dealing with compressed lead-times, fast changeovers and demands for good first parts—just the kinds of issues that are better solved up front.

By working at our customers’ location, the project engineer becomes instrumental in improving designs for repeatable and reliable manufacturing. In many cases, Donnelly has assisted in reducing the number of molds, parts and secondary operations required to achieve the customer’s intent.

Sound difficult?
It isn’t. Up-front engineering actually benefits both OEM and molder, so incorporating this valuable step into the design process is as easy as picking up the phone. If your molder won’t offer to be part of design, or can’t deliver the appropriate value, then find another molder that’s willing and able.

Problems often occur when a molder enters the process after the design is complete. Fixes on one part can have residual effects on all other parts in the final product. Every redesign results in significant loss of time and money, and generally undermine the cost and contribution potential for the life of the product, so it’s always best to get it right up front.

Based in Alexandria, Minn., Donnelly’s 230 employees are dedicated to setting the standards in the custom injection-molding marketplace for “How Short Run Is Done.” The company’s focus is on providing its OEM customers with value added engineering, and highly customized manufacturing and customer support services.  A strong customer service orientation ensures outstanding customer satisfaction.
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