Services

In product development, design is much more than mere product design for us. It is important to define innovative concepts that distinguish the design and technical function of your products from your competitors – to give you an economic advantage.
Our designers and engineers work in cross-disciplinary teams on new ways to find solutions for various tasks.

Using creative techniques as well as the experience and expertise of our team form the solid foundation for any idea. With sophisticated concepts from the beginning your developments are thus securely guided along the development process.

Design draft
At industrialpartners, technically oriented product design always includes looking at the entire product development, the product design, and supporting industrialisation until the production stage.

Everything starts with the production-oriented design concept and after this stage the design is implemented in CAD and materialised as a prototype. At the end of the development process, the 0-series is accepted in Europe or the Far East.

We implement the insights and inspirations of the analysis and design phase both systematically as well as creatively as idea sketches and mood boards. Using 2D and 3D renderings, preliminary models, and design models we always visualise different design concepts as the basis for your decision. We also demonstrate extreme design positions for this in order to find a market-driven design for the specified purpose jointly with the departments involved.

In this phase, we always take into account the production-oriented development of our designs because we want you to be able to get initial cost estimates of selected suppliers after completion of the design draft phase so you can check matching our designs with your budget at all stages.

Design detailing
The selected design concept is systematically detailed after the design draft phase, built in 3D CAD, and implemented with regard to the selected production technology. Colour, material, and surface studies define the final concept.

The product design process is finished upon handing in the product development or prototype. At this point it is also possible to hand over the detailed design proposal to your departments or to revise it in our company. We therefore always deliver the complete product definition upon completion of this phase incl. a complete native CAD data set that can be further processed in your own company’s CAD system. We therefore have the following CAD systems:

Solidworks
ProEngineer
CREO Elements
IDEAS

We also visualise the results of this phase via photorealistic images with which your sales department can already launch customer acquisition, if required also with animations and design models. After the approval of this phase, we are happy to continue to assist you in implementing the series.

As part of ongoing product development (feasibility study/proof-of-concept), the technical basis of the design draft is further developed after the product design stage and the technical concept is refined and optimised in terms of cost.

Risks are considered, reduced, or eliminated, and production processes and costs are secured. Project planning, project management, consultation and coordination with manufacturing businesses, as well as quality acceptance – to get the defined and approved design ready for series production as soon as possible and without loss of quality are also amongst our areas of responsibility.

Based on the preliminary designs and sketches, we work on the 3D CAD structure in the design phase and create surface data as a prerequisite for modelling in rapid prototyping, or for further processing and detailing in the CAD design.

In the short term, we adapt more and more results from the study of rapid prototyping parts into our development process.
According to customer demand, we procure and construct functional models, design models, and partial or full prototypes based on our 3D CAD data. We also organise the implementation of pilot and small series with rapid manufacturing processes (see also rapid tooling) or vacuum casting e.g. for realistic product tests, consumer surveys, or product demonstrations far in advance of production.

Before reaching the production stage comes the last development stage of the construction of a prototype or design model. With a broad network of partners in manufacturing, industrialpartners ensures accurate and reliable implementation of prototyping – whether with a plastic generative produced metallic component or span lifting shaped sheet metal part. The first model of your prototype emerges with the latest rapid technologies that can be examined, functional, or presented.

If you proceed methodically in the design and construction of product development, you can influence optimised production in this phase. You also stand out from the competition with technically innovative products and thus increase your market prospectives.

industrialpartners supports you in the development of products with added value through design and ease of use and the production-ready implementation of the CAD design.

When drafting in CAD, our engineers ensure that the constructions accurately meet the requirements described in the specifications sheet and that production stays on budget. Our experience in tool design is especially helpful here, because it enables us to later exclude process risks and optimise future cycle times as early as the product design phase. All of this is to your advantage: successful, well-thought out, and cost-effective designs. We work with many popular CAD programmes:

Solidworks
CREO Elements

In 3D CAD with prototyping support, the concept is detailed and developed in an overall assembly. Parts and housing construction incl. 2D drawing creation and production engineering optimisation are developed and delivered to you. Continuous documentation of development and the relevant decisions through our product development manual. Manufacturing drawings, parts lists BOM, assembly and exploded views are of course part of our services in this phase.

In addition to the development at our company, we also of course offer pure CAD design services. This includes assistance in preparing drawings based on data sets, detailing rough concepts, 3D modelling, and technical documentation. Whether for a simple component, complex assembly, or whole product! This is implemented based on your internal design guidelines or customer specifications.

These orders are individually carried out using a specification sheet or a personal meeting with you on site. IT data is exchanged via our secure FTP server, which guarantees you a high standard of project transparency and access speed every day. Our design engineers and technical product designers specialise in the following CAD software:

ProEngineer
SolidWorks
CREO Elements
IDEAS

Simultaneous engineering in simple terms refers to the overlap of different workflows as part of a development project. Simultaneous engineering (SE) is particularly useful between the workflows of product development and production (equipment) planning and production.

Traditionally, product development and production planning were two strictly separated, successive steps. First, the new product is designed and completely prepared. After this, planning the production systems (in particular injection molds) with which this product can be produced begins.

Production planning starts earlier when using simultaneous engineering. In our development process, it begins at the latest by design detailing in the stage of product development or CAD design. Once preliminary versions of the product are worked out, how to manufacture them begins to be planned. Development runs parallel to this. industrialpartners uses knowledge from injection moulding simulation, FME, and functional tests on samples to do this. For injection moulding simulation, we rely on our in-house software Solidworks Plastic.

We carry out FME calculations after determining with you the problem areas and parameters to be checked.

The advantage of this procedure is the time saved by the fact that the production facilities and costs are already checked and the means of production are already partly planned when the product is fully developed. SE is also referred to as being contradictory because each process step takes longer in itself, however, the total of the process steps together is shorter than when using conventional methods. This is due to the parallelisation of process steps already described. Another important aspect is early discovery of design-related production problems: the earlier a design change is made, generally the fewer costs are incurred. The worst case with a traditional method might be that the product is completely finished, but cannot be produced and thus must be redesigned. Simultaneous engineering helps to make these discoveries and the resulting changes at an earlier time.

The advantage of this procedure is the time saved by the fact that the production facilities and costs are already checked and the means of production are already partly planned when the product is fully developed. SE is also referred to as being contradictory because each process step takes longer in itself, however, the total of the process steps together is shorter than when using conventional methods. This is due to the parallelisation of process steps already described. Another important aspect is early discovery of design-related production problems: the earlier a design change is made, generally the fewer costs are incurred. The worst case with a traditional method might be that the product is completely finished, but cannot be produced. and thus must be redesigned. Simultaneous engineering helps to make these discoveries and the resulting changes at an earlier time.

Function, stability, and durability are important goals in your product development. industrialpartners helps in the experimental planning and execution.

This is how you achieve security in the implementation of your product. With our partners, we provide the following product tests for you:

The overall design and detailing to the creation of production and functional drawings is kept in detailed documentation according to your specifications.

Specification sheets, calculation documents, or trial reports are structured for you and processed systematically according to your needs. With these documents you have all the knowledge to have your product approved in accordance with legal guidelines or to register a patent for it.

With the help of rapid tooling, it is possible to economically produce high quality injection molded parts made of thermoplastics, silicones and elastomers including in small and medium quantities.

Particularly in projects that require a high need for coordination because of their complexity during the tool design and construction, this method is recommended as opposed to purchasing cheap tools from the Far East.

To provide you with prototypes and small series in high quality as quickly as possible, our partners use a rapid tooling process which is based on a tried and tested moulding system. These molding systems from tempered tool steel are supplemented by individually adjustable tool inserts. Using this combination it is possible to reduce the tool costs to an absolute minimum.

Rapid tooling is suitable as an alternative for the production of small to medium series. But we also use it in original material for implementing the pre-series, for samples of production lines, and for component testing. We are happy to advise you early in the design phase of our development process about the appropriate manufacturing processes.

Memoplast

industrialpartners does not have our own tool construction or capacity for mass production of parts – we leave this to our partners or the production companies chosen by you.

But as part of the product development process, we advise our customers about the most ideal production method – small, medium, or large series.

We work together with different producers from Germany, Europe, and the Far East for this. Different manufacturing processes are of course recommended for implementation. The demarcation parameters between these production methods are difficult to define and a choice is therefore only possible in terms of the project.

https://kleinserien.eu

A general statement on the best manufacturing method is impossible without examining your specific needs. It is therefore no problem to produce injection moulds in an aluminium-made cavity, which is used in a master mold, in quantities of up to 50,000 pcs. But even the use of a material which meets special UL requirements requires using an alternative manufacturing process due to its abrasive behaviour during the injection process. The following list therefore only provides a rough overview of the available methods for the production of plastic parts.

We recommend the following production methods for the production of plastic parts in small and medium series.

Small series

Small series; small to medium series/in particular large-volume components – vacuum casting – for small series; especially for marketing and presentation purposes.

Deep drawing – for small to medium series or individual components (in particular large-volume components).

TSG – thermoplastic foam injection for thick-walled, dimensionally stable and torsion-free injection molded parts up to 35 kg with complex geometries – PUR – plastic mouldings of polyurethane (PUR)

Small to medium-sized series /pre-series production for testing, amongst other things

Injection with tools with tool inserts made of aluminium – for small to medium series or pilot series leading up to mass production for quantities of up to 20,000 pcs. and more with certain materials.

Deep drawing is a simple and inexpensive way to reform plastic in the range of small series and thus equip your product with optimal functionality and the highest surface quality.

Medium to large series

Injection with tools with tool inserts made of aluminium – for small to medium series or pilot series leading up to mass production for quantities of up to 20,000 pcs. and more with certain materials.

Injection with uncured tools – for small to medium series

Injection with hardened tools – for medium to large series

In addition to this manufacturing method, we also integrate components from sheet metal and parts that are produced in an aluminium die-casting process in our technical solutions.