How to Find the Balance Between the Quality and Manufacturing Cost?

Quality, Cost and Deliver Time are the 3 key factors for custom parts manufacturing. If the requirement of any factor is changed, the other 2 factors will be effected.

For instance, a CNC machining component is used in important position, needing high strength and tight dimension tolerance, then we choose better material and more precision manufacturing process, this means both the material cost and machining time will be increased accordingly. And the production leadtime will be longer too.

Sometimes most of us do face a similar question: the quality requirement is strict but cost is high, what shall we do to lower down the manufacturing cost without decreasing quality level?

Our answer is to find a balance between quality and cost.

First, we check with customer if the manufacturing quantity of each batch can be increased? As per our experience, the unit manufacturing cost is seriously effected by manufacturing quantity when the quantity of each manufacturing batch is lower than 1000 pieces. If buyer can combine two batches into one batch to increase the manufacturing quantity per batch, generally the unit manufacturing cost will be effectively lower.

Second, if quantity does’t work well. We further work with customer to change similar material. For instance, a component needs 5 series aluminium, it is a regular material in USA, but 5 series aluminium is seldom used in China, in such case, we will further check with customer if possible to change material to 6061 T6 aluminium, as this material is widely used in China, with lower material cost but similar material character.

Third, we assist customer to optimize the design. Our engineer will further analyze the engineer drawing and provide design change advice in the view of manufacturing. For instance, the CNC turning cost is lower than CNC milling. If a product can be designed and manufactured by CNC turning instead of CNC milling, then do it 🙂

But if the part must be CNC milled, then we will further look into the design to find out the main reasons causing the high cost, then we assist customer to optimize the design especially for these expensive detail.

A successful balance between quality and cost depends on the professional cooperation between component designer and manufacturing engineer. This is what Henrong is doing to assist our customers to be more successful.