How to Select the Right Mechanical Design Engineering Service Provider
Every small or large system has numerous mechanical components that need critical mechanical design engineering. Be it a tablet, a multimedia device, a simple handheld device, aircraft components, cooling and heating systems, industrial equipment, complex machinery, medical devices or robotics. Development of these systems are highly dependent on the user experience, robustness of design, ease of use and make them as compact, optimized as possible. Mechanical design engineering services help design such components.
Mechanical design or product design services include creating assembly drawings that are used in different types of structural designs, architectural schematics, and mechanical assemblies. The drawings can then be converted into sketches to 2D & 3D CAD Modeling, developing 2D drafts for increasing the efficiency and correctness of the drafts and drawings.
Many mechanical design engineering service providers can design the exterior of a product with impressive 3D rendering. However, operating requirements are also important. In addition, OEMs often discard these, which can cause costly reengineering down the road. All of this can be mitigated by choosing the right mechanical design engineering service provider.
An experienced mechanical design engineering service ensures the product will last while performing its functions successfully with aesthetics, ease of use, form factor, and durability.
However, choosing the right mechanical design engineering service provider can be challenging.
Consider below checkpoints to select the right mechanical design engineering service provider
1. Pick Comprehensive Mechanical Design Engineering Service Provider
Evaluate the mechanical design service providers that provide both expertise and value. Create the product/project budget requirements and after that select the vendor that has the capabilities to identify mechanical requirements easily, collect relevant information about the mechanical components, do the feasibility study and can easily mold manufacturable concepts into the final mechanical product.
It is always advisable to select the vendor that can support the mold manufacturing to T0 samples fabrication and machine assembly to the Final T1 samples fabrication with dispatch. They must also support the mechanical design standard and simulation strategies to give quality deliverables to the customer and provide the best outcome out of your investment.
2. Evaluate Mechanical Design and Development Process
The basic requirements for the quality design is to implement the proven processes starting from the requirements to the mechanical mold manufacturing followed by the final product assemblies and deliverables. The selected service provider should be ISO certified and must be following the best proven practices for the product development process. This will lead to products to market on time and within budget. The service provider should use the modular approach and phase wise execution for better deliverables of the mechanical design and mold. ACL Digital mechanical design experts follows the more systematic process as represented below:
3. Be Concerned About Mechanical Design, Simulation and Hardware tools
Evaluate mechanical vendors whether they are using the upgraded and/or latest version of the design and simulation tools such as Autodesk Sketchbook, Solidworks, Keyshot, Creo 5.0 CATIA, etc. so that it can comply with various endurance and Ipx4 or higher version certification requirements. The supported software packages and the support tools play a major role to achieve the compliant product design. The hardware tools, materials and equipment are also one of the requirements to validate the design to make it a more bug free design.
4. Check Geographical Proximity Effects
Geographical distance does not matter for the giants as they are accustomed to work remotely and have the right tools in place. However, small scale businesses can have access to local mechanical design service providers for better collaboration, understanding and hardware access, data security concerns, required more in-house resource involvement and last but not least for effective collaboration and communication.
5. Ensure Explicit Communication & Reporting Process
The vendor must sync up with the clients in a regular time interval with good communication during design and development stages. It is always advisable to assess the communication and stay informed via Email, Video conference, Weekly/Daily sync status reports or other professional chat media. The mechanical design provider must communicate DFM and Mold Flow Analysis of the design followed by the mold fabrication queries to T0 samples review till the T1 samples review to complete the mold processes in time to launch the product within a specific timeframe.
ACL Digital, being a one-stop solutions provider, offers complete mechanical and product design services from concept to manufacturing. Our years of experience in delivering product excellence and innovation enable us to help our clients navigate through a complete cycle of developing innovative products with reduced time to market and improved ROI. Our mechanical design prowess has helped our clients across various industries like Consumer Electronics, Medical/Healthcare, Industrial Automation, Automotive, Retail, etc. to develop viable production-ready prototypes that outperform in the field. ACL Digital has already developed multiple mechanical enclosures starting from the concepts followed by the Design to development to Mold manufacturing to production to final dispatch with packaging.
Read our success stories to know how ACL Digital help their clients with mechanical design engineering and product design services.