How can you balance manufacturing engineering trade-offs?

Well said, I have experienced this for many years. Part tolerances that were almost unachievable. Misuse of GD&T has become a machinist’s nightmare. Profiles of .0001, True positions of .0002 are some of the tolerances I have been asked to hold. I agree with the viewpoint that all Mechanical Engineers and similar disciplines spend at least 2 years making parts designed by others, not necessarily their own. There is an accountability that goes with producing a part to print/model that doesn’t come with making your own part. Some of the most successful engineers I have worked with were ones that knew their processing knowledge was not strong and relied on the seasoned machinists to help them with design for manufacturability.

The most important thing in manufacturing is volume and variety. At the top level, business managers should invest in the tools, equipment, software and expertise to ensure their manufacturing business is optimised for the type of work they do. For a project, at the earliest stage which is often a quotation, the first and most important question is, how many? You don't want to spend weeks perfecting the process when it's only a small batch run which is completed in short time. But equally, you don't want to pull out all the stops and rush something through, only for the customer to drop a huge order on you which your process is inadequate to manage.

Balancing manufacturing engineering trade-offs involves defining objectives and criteria, generating possible alternatives, analyzing and comparing them using quantitative methods, selecting the best alternative, and monitoring its performance and outcomes. This process requires creativity, critical thinking, and communication skills. It involves evaluating technical specifications, customer requirements, market conditions, regulatory standards, and environmental impacts, and implementing and monitoring the chosen alternative.

While I didn't design, I worked with ME's as an assembler and maintenance. I would look over their design and try to figure out how to put it together and how to service/repair it later on. It's amazing how a minor design change improves many things later. Design change early cost nil, savings later could be huge. Some of the best engineers I worked with worked with their hands when younger.

Analyzing alternatives and constraints is indispensable in the realm of balancing manufacturing engineering tradeoffs. This process allows for a thorough examination of available options and the limitations within which decisions must be made. By systematically evaluating alternatives and constraints, manufacturing engineers gain insights into potential solutions and can identify the most viable tradeoff scenarios. This analytical approach not only facilitates informed decision-making but also ensures that the chosen tradeoffs align with both objectives and constraints, ultimately leading to a more strategic and effective manufacturing engineering strategy.

In my experience, an organization who takes on significant operational debt is most impacted in longer term metrics. What makes sense in the short run often has significant impact, which can be devastating to the bottom line. For example, a trade off for a faster supply chain may compromise cost and/or quality. Don’t be afraid to highlight issues, and always have a plan to reduce the operational debt in a timely fashion.

Often, your proposal is a no-brainer to like-minded and equally technical people. Frustration sets in when decision makers have less experience and knowledge about the technical arguments resulting in disagreement and erroneous decisions. The key is ensuring to always centre your argument around financial implications. How much will it cost exactly, how much will be gained exactly. How quickly will the investment be returned. In some cases, what is the cost of not doing it. Anyone with charge over a budget will speak the language of cost and return so make sure to convert your technical argument into that language simply and effectively.

Sounds like ISO certification. The best companies were doing "ISO like things" before the certification existed. Problem is, some companies think getting ISO certified will fix everything (I have been involved in 3 from scratch certs) but they need to understand it takes work and it's continuous.

Customers feedback plays a pivotal role in balancing the manufacturing engineering trade-offs. It helps to review and improve your process and tools that are used for manufacturing a certain product. So, it must not ne ignored at any cost.

Actually you can’t balance engineering trade offs. Requirements too high, changes too frequent and products too complicate today. Investment in training, tools and software, and most important, people, have to be over the expectation, preliminary calculations and logical estimations. The problems will not try to balance, so the engineering team haven’t to be kept “balanced” as well.

To balance trade-offs, I recommend decision-makers focus on Risk – if a potential change has a high risk to your business , whether cost, legislative, safety, environment, operational disruption, reputation etc. Then you will likely want higher confidence, which may mean more data in the insight trade.

Balancing could be done by a thorough investigation of solutions that the industry could provide. Selection of supplier in the early stages of Design and Devlopment and Validation of Production.