When designing your product, standardized parts will help you make the most out of your design. Using Standardized parts will save you time, money, and will make both designing and manufacturing your product easier and quicker. Standardized parts are an excellent way to streamline the process of engineering and manufacturing.
What Does Using Standardized Parts Look Like?
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.
Using standardized parts means that instead of custom designing every component, you use pre existing stock items that are already available and incorporate them in your design. Components can include screws, bolts, fasteners, fixtures, and fittings to both speed up both the design process and production.
Using Custom Parts
For custom parts, manufacturers will need to make and set up custom tooling in order to produce the part. If your part requires more complex tooling such as a mold that will raise the price and increase the time it will take to produce your part. Mold making is a complex and delicate process and it will often take more than a month just to make the mold.
Also, every time you place an order for a custom part, manufacturers will have to set up and break down the custom tooling for each order, which takes some time that they have to account for when they give you pricing.
If your part requires a screw to keep it together, it’s easier for the factory making your part to use a stock screw that they can already keep on hand in inventory, which means it will be less expensive for you to order from them.
Comparing Standardized Parts to Custom
Standardized parts allow the engineer designing your idea to only have to put the dimensions specs of the stock part, rather than having to design and test a custom part and make sure it fits. Troubleshooting problems with your parts will also be easier for your engineer. Working with custom parts is often an experimental process and can involve trial and error to get things right. Stock parts help streamline that process since engineers designing the parts will be familiar with how they work which will help them pinpoint issues more quickly and effectively. The difference would be like using a tool you’ve owned for years compared to buying a new one that you have to read the manual and watch videos on how the tool works in order to learn how to use it.
There are more standard parts out there than you might think.
For example, many car parts are interchangeable. You can use brake pads, bulbs, and wipers on several different models of vehicles. By using standard components car manufacturers are able to keep costs down and maintain quality.
There are hundreds of components in a cell phone. Many of these parts are also used for several different phones. Parts like transistors, resistors, integrated circuits, are just a few of the standard stock parts that can be used for several different phones. Transistors themselves are used in any device that relies on integrated circuits like radios, computers, washing machines etc.
Keeping Products Unique with Standardized Part Use
It should be said that not every part of your design needs to be a standard part. You don’t need to lose what makes your product custom and unique for the sake of efficiency. And there are times where custom parts will function better than a standard stock part, but most of the time it’s better to use standardized parts when possible.
Looking to see if you can use standardized parts in your design? Our engineering team would be happy to help you.