Prototype / Design for Manufacturing
Service Metal Fabricators provides interested customers with Design and Engineering Assistance, in addition to our general fabrication services. Most metal purchases call for straight made-to-print service, but occasionally, you might seek a more collaborative partnership. Via SMF’s prototype service, we can bring your new designs to life rapidly. Through available prototype design reviews that help you evaluate the cost efficiency of proposed projects, we are able to provide the best possible service to customers looking to bring their new products to market ahead of schedule and under budget.
Collaborative Approach to Prototyping and DFM
Service Metal Fabricators is committed to providing our customers with our full attention as it concerns prototyping and design-for-manufacturability. As a result, our team is not only trained to provide high-quality fabricating services, they are also communicative with our clients. And since collaboration is a priority, Service Metal Fabricators will welcome in-person meetings with our customers. Whether you prefer to meet at our facility, or for our team to travel to your facility, SMF is eager to find a solution that works for you.
What is Design for Manufacturing?
Design-for-manufacturability, shortened as “DFM”, is the process of designing a component with the manufacturing process in mind, where appropriate. The critical elements of your design support the very features that allow your product to function. They might also serve to differentiate your product offering from competitors. Either way, critical elements must be preserved since they add value. But what about design features that drive manufacturing cost and complexity, but add no value to your customers? Design-for-manufacturing seeks to eliminate these by removing unnecessary cost and complexity where no commensurate benefit is derived.
DFM continues at all stages of your product’s life cycle at Service Metal. When we know a customer to be considering design options, we fast-forward to identifying any potential manufacturing sensitivities and vulnerabilities in advance, and we can recommend simplifying elements to remove them. In other cases, the more we get to know and produce your metal parts, the better our understanding grows of how they fit into your systems and mate with adjacent parts and components. Coupled with any potential manufacturing vulnerabilities observed, SMF is perfectly positioned to recommend, for your consideration, any simplifications that would drive your costs lower. This is standard operating procedure for our skilled engineering team and skilled craftsmen and women.
Designing With the Right Materials
Working with a wide variety of materials, including most all of the alloys of steel, aluminum, and stainless steel, along with plastic varieties, copper, brass, and others, allows SMF the flexibility to produce to your exact specifications and applicable ASTM, Military and other standards. Material certifications are available for the traceability and verification steps that are critical in many industries or projects. Moreover, our breadth of materials affords us insights to advise you about the advantages and disadvantages of competing material choices when this input can assist in your design process.