Fabrication

The fabrication phase transforms refined designs into physical reality through precise manufacturing processes, quality control, and careful documentation. This final stage ensures that the final product meets all design specifications and quality standards.

I have interacted with many engineers both in-house and external during my career, and I've learned that effective pushes to market involve my ability as a designer to understand fabrication processes from the start while maintaining effective and pragmatic communication with manufacturing teams.

Design for Manufacture

Design for Manufacture (DFM) is the process of optimizing designs for efficient and cost-effective production. This involves considering manufacturing constraints, material properties, and assembly processes during the design phase.

Below is a pair of parametric design scripts I build in Rhino Grasshopper, which allowed for interpolation of images for perforated sheets (bottom flow) and a gradient cut-off for custom-cut edging (top flow).

Left image shows an example of the perforation hole gradient, right image shows the interpolator adding leaves to playspace fencing.

Liasing with suppliers and manufacturers to work through the manufacturability of final designs is a skill that I have honed through my career. Below are samples of injection moulding feedback for my camera housing in 2019.

Production

Drafting and drawing for installers and manufacturers is a critical part of the design process, I have developed this skill to be as error-free as possible and to cater to the needs of various fabricators who need as much information as possible to do their job quickly and with as little follow-up with the designer as possible.

QC (Quality Control)

Quality control ensures that fabricated components meet design specifications and quality standards. This involves inspection processes, measurement verification, and testing throughout the manufacturing process.

As the designer, developing strong relationships with suppliers is an important part of my role, as moments of contention would unwind into costly delays, re-negotiating and potentially missed deadlines.