Product design
For us, design in product development goes far beyond pure product design. The aim is to define innovative concepts that differentiate your products from the competition in terms of design and technical function – to your economic advantage.
Our designers and engineers work in cross-disciplinary teams to find new ways of solving numerous tasks.
The application of creativity techniques and the experience and expertise of our teams form the solid foundation for every idea. With well thought-out concepts right from the start, your developments are guided safely into the further development process.
Design draft
At industrialpartners, technically oriented product design always includes a view of the complete product development, article design and support for industrialization through to series production.
Everything starts with the production-ready design concept, which is then implemented in CAD and materialized as a prototype. At the end of the development process, the 0 series is accepted in Europe or the Far East.
We implement the findings and inspiration from the analysis and concept phase both systematically and creatively in idea sketches and mood boards. With the help of 2D and 3D renderings, preliminary models and design models, we always visualize different design drafts as a basis for your decision. To this end, we also point out extreme design positions in order to find a market-driven design for the specified objective together with the specialist departments involved.
In this phase, we always consider the production-oriented structure of our designs. This is because we want to enable you to obtain initial cost estimates from selected suppliers as soon as the design draft phase has been completed, in order to check that our designs match your budget specifications at all stages.
Design detailing
The selected design concept is systematically detailed after the design draft phase, built up in 3D CAD and implemented with regard to the selected production technology. Color, material and surface studies define the final concept.
The product design process ends with the handover to product development or prototype construction. At this point, it is also possible to hand over the detailed design draft to your specialist departments or to continue working on it in-house. That’s why we always deliver the complete product definition at the end of this phase; incl. a complete native CAD data set that can be further processed in your in-house CAD system. We therefore have the following CAD systems available:
Solidworks
ProEngineer
CREO Elements
IDEAS
We also visualize the results of this phase with photorealistic images, which your sales department can use to start acquiring customers right away, including animations and design models on request. Once this phase has been approved, we will be happy to assist you with the implementation in series production.
As part of further product development (feasibility study/proof of concept), following the product design phase, the technical foundations of the design draft are now being worked on further and the technical concept is being refined and optimized in terms of costs.
Risks are considered, reduced or excluded, and manufacturing processes and costs are safeguarded. Our tasks also include project planning, project management, coordination with manufacturing companies, right through to quality acceptance – in order to bring the defined and approved design into series production as quickly as possible and without any loss of quality.
Product development
We develop software and assemblies according to your needs and requirements with the highest quality standards:
Functionally correct and with real added value!
You will receive from us:
Development of circuit diagrams and layouts with modern professional tools
Customization of the firmware/application
Supporting the production launch – from prototypes to pilot series to series release
Automation or semi-automated production and system tests
Preparation of comprehensive documentation, incl. Specifications, test protocols, type test reports,
Specifications and MTBF calculations
Those who take a methodical approach to design and construction in product development can also influence optimized production in this phase. You also stand out from the competition with technically innovative products and thus increase your market opportunities.
industrialpartners supports you in the development of products with added value through design and user-friendliness and the production-oriented implementation in CAD design.
When working on CAD, our engineers ensure that the designs meet the requirements described in the specifications and enable production within budget. Our experience in tool design is particularly useful here. This is the only way we can rule out process risks later on and optimize future cycle times as early as the article design stage. All this is to your advantage: successful, well thought-out and economical constructions. We work with many common CAD programs:
Solidworks
CREO Elements
The concept is detailed in 3D CAD with prototyping support and developed into an overall assembly. Parts and housing design incl. 2D drawing derivation and production optimization are prepared and handed over to you. Continuous documentation of development and the corresponding decisions through our product development manual. Production drawings, parts list creation BOM, assembly and exploded drawings are naturally part of our services in this phase.
In addition to in-house development, we also offer pure CAD design services. This includes support with the creation of drawings based on your data sets, the detailing of rough concepts, 3D modeling and technical documentation. Whether simple component, complex assembly or entire product! The implementation is based on your internal design guidelines or customer specifications.
These orders are processed individually on the basis of a specification sheet or a personal meeting at your premises. The EDP data exchange is realized via our secure FTP server, which guarantees you maximum project transparency and access speed on a daily basis. Our design engineers and technical product designers specialize in the following CAD software:
Solidworks
CREO Elements
Simultaneous engineering simply refers to the overlapping of different work processes within a development project. Simultaneous engineering (SE) between the product development and production (resource) planning and production workflows is particularly beneficial.
Traditionally, product development and production planning are two strictly separate, consecutive steps. First, the new product is designed and fully developed. This is followed by the planning of the production equipment (especially injection molds) with which this product can be manufactured.
When using simultaneous engineering, production planning begins earlier. In our development process, at the latest after the design detailing in the product development or CAD design phase. As soon as preliminary versions of the product have been developed, production planning will begin. Development is continuing in parallel. To this end, industrialpartners uses findings from injection molding simulation, FME and functional tests on samples, among other things. We use our in-house software for injection molding simulation
Solidworks Plastic
We carry out FME calculations with service partners after we have determined the problem areas and parameters to be examined with you.
The advantage of this approach is the time saved because the production possibilities and costs have already been checked and the production resources have already been partially planned by the time the product has been fully developed. This is also referred to as the SE paradox, as each process step in itself takes longer, but the sum of the process steps is shorter than in the conventional process. This is due to the parallelization of process steps described above. Another important aspect, however, is the early detection of design-related production problems: The earlier a design change is made, the lower the costs usually are. The worst case scenario with the traditional approach can be: The product is completely finished, but cannot be manufactured. So it has to be redesigned. Simultaneous engineering helps to postpone such findings and the resulting changes to an earlier point in time.
Function, stability and durability are key objectives in your product development. industrialpartners supports you in the planning and execution of tests.
This gives you security in the implementation of your product. We carry out the following product tests for you with our partners:
- Static tensile tests
- Vibration/fatigue strength tests
- General functional checks
- Surface tests/corrosion tests and much more
The entire development and detailing process, right through to the creation of production-ready and functional drawings, is recorded in detailed documentation according to your specifications.
Specifications, calculation documents or test reports are prepared for you in a structured and systematic way according to your requirements. With these documents, you have all the knowledge you need to register your product in accordance with the legal guidelines or, for example, to apply for a patent.
Production
Based on preliminary drafts and sketches, we develop the 3D CAD structure in the design phase and create surface data as a prerequisite for model creation in rapid prototyping, or for further processing and detailing in CAD design.
In the short term, we always incorporate results from the investigation of rapid prototyping parts into our development process.
We procure and build functional models, design models, partial or full prototypes based on our 3D CAD data according to customer requirements. We also manage the realization of pilot and small series with rapid manufacturing processes (see also rapid tooling) or vacuum casting, e.g. for realistic product tests, consumer studies or product demonstrations well in advance of production for our customers.
The final development stage before series production is ready is the construction of a prototype or design model. With a broad network of partners in the manufacturing industry, industrialpartners ensures precise and reliable implementation of prototype construction – whether plastic material, generatively produced metallic component or machined sheet metal part. Using the latest rapid technologies, the first prototypes of your prototype are created as illustrative, functional or presentation objects.
Rapid tooling makes it possible to economically produce high-quality injection-molded parts from thermoplastics, silicones and elastomers, even in small and medium quantities.
This process is particularly recommended for projects that require a high level of coordination during tool design and construction due to their complexity, as opposed to purchasing cheap tools in the Far East.
In order to provide you with high-quality prototypes and small series in the shortest possible time, our partners rely on a rapid tooling process based on a tried and tested master mold system. These master molds made of hardened and tempered tool steel are supplemented by individually adjustable tool inserts. This combination makes it possible to reduce tool costs to an absolute minimum.
Rapid tooling is a suitable alternative for the production of small to medium-sized series. However, we also use it for the implementation of pre-series; for sampling production lines or component testing in the original material. We are happy to advise you on the most suitable manufacturing process early on in the concept phase of our development process.
industrialpartners does not have its own toolmaking facilities or capacities for the series production of parts – we are happy to leave this to our partners or the production companies you select.
However, as part of the product development process, we advise our customers on the most suitable production processes – for small, medium and large series.
We work together with various manufacturers from Germany, Europe and the Far East. Of course, different manufacturing processes are recommended for the realization. The demarcation parameters between these production processes are difficult to define and a selection can therefore only ever be made on a project-by-project basis.
A general statement on the best possible manufacturing process is not possible without checking your specific requirements. This means that injection molds made in an aluminum cavity inserted in a master mold can easily produce quantities of up to 50,000 units. produce. However, even the use of a material that meets special UL requirements, for example, requires the use of an alternative manufacturing process due to its abrasive behavior during the spraying process. The following list therefore only provides a rough overview of the processes available for the production of plastic parts.
We recommend the following production processes for the production of plastic parts in small and medium series.
Small series
Very small series; small to medium series/ especially large-volume components – vacuum casting – for very small series; especially for sales and presentation purposes.
Deep drawing – for small to medium series or individual components (especially large-volume components).
TSG – Thermoplastic foam injection molding for thick-walled, dimensionally stable and torsion-free injection molded parts up to 35 kg with complex geometries – PUR – Plastic molded parts made of polyurethane (PUR)
Small to medium series/pre-series production for test purposes, among others
Injection molding with tools with tool inserts made of aluminum – for small to medium series or pre-series in the run-up to mass production for quantities of up to 20,000 units. and beyond with certain materials.
Thermoforming is a simple and cost-effective way of forming plastic in small batches to give your product optimum functionality and the highest surface quality.
Medium to large series
Injection molding with tools with tool inserts made of aluminum – for small to medium series or pre-series in the run-up to mass production for quantities of up to 20,000 units. and beyond with certain materials.
Injection molding with unhardened tools – for small to medium series
Injection molding with hardened tools – for medium to large series
In addition to these manufacturing processes, we integrate sheet metal components and parts manufactured using the aluminum die-casting process into our technical solutions.