76 MMS August 2017 mmsonline.com
FEATURE
M
any leading machine shops offer design for
manufacturabilit y (DFM) advice to their
customers. Modifications to a part's overall design,
cer tain par t features or tolerances that don't
adversely affect product performance can often
simplify the machining of the part, reducing over-
all manufacturing costs and production time.
FEA for DFM
Shops that offer design for manufacturability advice can reduce customers'
machining cost and complexity. This shop leverages finite element analysis
as part of its sophisticated DFM efforts, and this also helps in its efforts to
establish long-term relationships with its customers' engineers.
BY D E R E K KO R N
Finite element analysis is a powerful tool for Parametric USA in its efforts to provide design for
manufacturability services to help its customers to simplify their part designs for easier machining.
DFM is becoming more impor tant these
days, as an increasing number of companies
don't have internal machining or manufacturing
capabilities to produce their products. Thus,
design engineers can't solicit ideas from their
own manufacturing experts for ways to refine
their designs to simplify machining. It can also