Design for Fabrication

Introduction

Design for Fabrication is design which considers ease of fabrication as the primary goal. This does not mean that performance is compromised regarding the intended purpose of the machine. Moreover, design for fabrication should consider not point performance, but Integrated Performance - performance which considers a large number of factors.

Example

See an example of the engine mounting plate for the Power Cube.

The point is, the mounting plate is a 1/4" plate with some holes. Nothing else. Simple to fabricate with the minimum parts.

Compare this to this engine mount plate on another device, which is not so simple:

Note: that may be a bad example, since we are considering different functions (the latter is an engine mount plate from the Mobile Dimensions sawmill), but the fact remains that the latter could be simplified if design-for-fabrication were an objective. This simplification has indeed been shown in OSE's Dimensional Sawmill.