ABSTRACT
This chapter lists some general guidelines for part design, including fabrication, part standardization, symmetry, tolerances, part shapes, and combining parts and functions. For critical parts, the part designer should be an early and active participant in the system engineering of the product or subassembly to help optimize the systems architecture concept that determines the part's requirements. The wrong cost metric will actually discourage implementing design guidelines. The best way teach companies how to learn DFM guidelines is for DFM trainers to show relevant examples of the guidelines in customized classes to product development teams. When building high-variety parts at low-volumes, the variety done by flexible CNC machine tools needs to be maximized, which may override the usual economic trade-offs for mass-produced parts. The type of process depends on the tolerance. If the tolerance is tighter than the limit, the next most precise—and expensive—process must be used.
