Reducing Cost & Time

The eMachineShop CAD software automatically selects the most economical process given your design and settings such as tolerances.

However there are many ways to reduce fabrication costs and delivery time for custom parts. Here are a few:

Reducing Cost

• See the general cost reduction tips.
  
• Almost all choices you make in the drawing and selections in each dialog effect price. Choose the lowest cost options where possible.
• Select the lowest cost (loosest tolerances) in Job | Settings | Specs: Auto.
• Click Job | Price | Cost reduction | Machine (s) and resolve as many machine incompatibilities as practical. This allows the system a better chance of using a lower cost process.
  
• If you need a 3D part with it's mirror image: draw one side of mirror; set quantity to total number of both parts; add as Comments to Machinist "Run half order quantity using mirror image of design."
• If you need to apply a finish (powder coat, anodize, plate, etc.) to multiple jobs placed simultaneously, add Comments To Machinist "Apply finishing setup credit for orders placed today." Your parts will be processed in one batch and the savings passed back to you.
  
• Sometimes you can save by using pre-shaped stock such as pipe or square tube.
• For small 2D parts, if 1/16" fiberglass can be used, ordering a blank circuit board from our pad2pad.com branch may be more economical.
• For 2D parts try to nest (arrange) parts efficiently to minimize material use.
• For 2D parts, some shapes nest more efficiently by including an extra rotated copy. For example, a part in the shape of the letter C is more efficient with two C's arranged so that one copy is rotated 180 degrees and shifted down 50% and a bit to the right.
  
• For injection molding minimize use of holes and recesses in the Front, Back, Left and Right views. Such features require additional complications in tooling. Minimizing such features may require redesigning from another orientation (e.g. moving the Front view to the Top view).
  
• Don't assume the lowest price combination you tried a month ago is the lowest price today.

Reducing Delivery Time

There are several ways to reduce delivery time for custom parts. Here are just a few:

• In Job | Materials, check "Show only recommended materials" - those materials are more often in stock.
• Avoid requesting special materials.
• Reduce the number of finishing steps in Job | Finishing.
• Minimize usage of Comments to Machinist.
• Click Job | Price | Cost reduction | Machine (s) and resolve as many machine incompatibilities as practical. This can allow you to run the job on machines with shorter delivery times.
• Pay by credit card.
• For high quantities consider splitting the job to two orders - a small run with faster delivery and the main run with slower delivery.