Looking for manufacturing process information

Refer any handbooks first. You will find many handbooks in a good library.

Hello Kiljaeden

You have an interesting project ahead of you.

As far as accessing databases of the nature you are requiring, I know of none which are not proprietary.

That means that the effort of assembling all the information, setting up a database, normally requires much time, and costs are expensive.

What you are looking for, is for others to give away their hard work, for nothing, it appears.

By all means continue with your project, I do admire your courage.

I expect you should spend several years achieving somewhat near your desired result.

It is a never-ending quest, because manufacturing processes, materials, methods, machinery, and other variables, are constantly changing, so you can never be truly up-to-date with your massive database.

You will find resources you never knew existed, but they are going to have to be searched out for....by you yourself.....

Kind Regards....

Can I borrow Sparkstation's sincere (Polished person that he is) comments:

"By all means continue with your project, I do admire your courage".

I also feel you need not drag on for years.

In fact you can release portions as Mark1 version --daily one portion for a few days-- say at end of Feb08-- and ask all CR4 members to pool in their comments--which you then Edit for Mark2 release for the world as the latest Thesarus.

Partition the whole--and it becomes manageable! Your missing information will be all there in CR4 as a whole.

Manufacturing is an ever-evolving, ever-changing process, especially with the invention of new technologies. This will be very difficult to compile and keep up to date. Good luck to you.

Btw, with a name like Kiljaeden, I take it you play WoW. Azuremyst here.

lol, actually I don't play WoW. I got that name from Warcraft 2. Lots of people ask me that though.

And I have been able to get a good dose of information already. I've managed to get the typical and atypical materials, tolerances and surface finishes for over half of the processes I am looking for. I've also found a book that I'm getting my company to buy which might be a very good resource.

Sir:

Your question is so broad as to defy analogy.

If the process is to manufacture cheese...,find a source of milk...

If it to fabricate metal..there is casting...machining...forming surface treating..too many fields to find in anything other than the Machinist's Handbook....

facitiously... if it to manufacture horse manure...get a horse and some hay..

Too broad a question ...compilatin/indexing the information will take considerable time...apply for a grant....

MR. GUY

I have already looked in the Machinery's Handbook 27th Edition. In fact it has a rather limited collection of the information I am looking for. Basically the reason why I'm doing this spreadsheet is so that the design engineers in my company can go:

"Okay, I've designed this part, I want to put the tolerance on this particular dimension to +/- X."

"Looking at the spreadsheet, you'd need to use process A to make it to those tolerances. Process A is quite expensive and has difficulty with that material. Processes B, C and D can get to tolerance Y, which is still pretty good, but they're much cheaper. Could we go with one of those?"

"Hmm...." (does some design analysis) "Yes, I think we can go with C, the part should still be good enough for this system"

"Okay, we'll use C. It costs half as much as A would have".

End result: The part ends up being a lot cheaper to make while still being good enough for the application. Since for nearly any shape or material of part you want to make there could be over a dozen processes that could do it, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, the spreadsheet that I am making could both improve the quality of the design and save my company money. My boss specifically asked me to do this.

I am managing to get good information for this but it is taking a while, hence the request for any information on free databases that might have similar information. I would have thought that this kind of database would be common considering how useful it could be.

I know this thread is almost three years old now so I am sure you are already completed with this project.

I only found it because, as a Warcraft and WoW player, the name caught my eye.

Anyway, I just wanted to comment that I had to do a similar project early into my career. The motivation behind the task, as assigned to me, was three-fold:

Teach me about manufacturing processes and limitations.

Develop a reference Database for others to use as needed.

Identify areas for cost reduction while maintaining product performance

In a sense your boss was looking for tools to apply DFM (Design for Manufacturing) which since this thread is almost 3 years old now… I'm sure you know.

As most designers have little to no machine shop experience, it is hard for them to apply DFM methodologies properly. Even with a basic understanding of the different way to machine a keyway, they might not know the surface condition caused by the process and thus might spec the wrong surface finish, and oops… what once could have been broached or milled now has to be ground.

As I got into it, I realized how daunting a task it could be so I applied some boundary conditions and reversed my approach.

Where first I went from the manufacturing process end and broke it down into families, and then tools, and then capabilities/limitations; I changed to looking at the product the company made and asked for input and guidance to identify the Top 10 most expensive parts to manufacture.

I started with #1 on the list and identified how that part was currently being made and on what machine tools… then identified the capabilities of those tools. I then found the next better and the next worse tool, in regards to capability and analyzed those.

Within about 3 weeks, I had all associated and potential manufacturing processes, as related to the most expensive part it cost my employer to manufacture, and had all their capabilities identified in regards to tolerance, surface finishes, speeds and feeds, etc… turned it all over to the design engineering group, with a cover letter that referenced some suggestion that came to light through the course of my research.

Before I was even half way done with repeating the process with part #2 on the list, they had made quite a few changes to part one and already started realizing savings.

So anyway, just wanted to comment that I had a similar task and how I approached it. So if your task is complete, great… if it died, maybe you can revitalize it using the part-specific approach.

So, yeah, the task was daunting, in total I spent about three years on it. Although if I recall, after about 6 to 8 months my efforts were reduced to part-time and then the last year was guiding the new kid who took it over.

It made for a nice book that reached about 250 pages with cross references, pictures, calculations and a sample 'show and tell' box of misc pieces-parts depicting different end results of various processes.

It was divided into multipule sections, (Feature, Process, and Machine Tool) and each cross-referenced the other.

For example, you could go to the Feature Section and look up 'Hole' and there were charts that would query you for diameter, depth, material, tolerance, and finish which would then guide you to typical processes that could achieve your inputs.

So then you go to the process section for each one and it talked about speeds, feeds, qunatities, and what kind of machine tools can perform that process.

(Note - based on other's comments in this thread, certinally there are a ton of different ways to make a hole so you limit your data to the common sense choices that are easily avilable in your area and realte to your product. I mean just because NASA can make a hole by removing .0000001 "/sec of material with sound waves doesn't mean you need to put that in your book if your most critical tolerance will only ever require reaming.)

Anyway, you continue through the book to the machne tool section and you'd see costing data and lists of where that machine tool can be located.

And as others have mentioned, they kept it under lock and key… it was not allowed off the reference desk, you weren't allowed to make copies of anything… you'd think it contained nuclear launch codes, haha.

Man, now you got me wondering… I haven't worked for that company in a LONG time… I wonder if it is still there… going to have to check into it.

I actually hope I am wrong but what you are trying to do sounds impossible. With any manufacturing process there are so many variables that many years of experience are neccessary to spot the best one and determine the tolerances they practically can hold. Sometimes a few tenths can tripple the price of the article in question.

Add to that the fact that design engineers often haven't a clue as to the actual tolerances needed.

The absolute worst example of this is IBM. Tight tolerances to them seem to be a religion instead of a tool. I worked on cam blanks for them where they specified a tolerance of .0002 squareness in one inch for keyways.

Watch out for the engineer who feels he must leave his mark on the product. I know of one case in another nationally known plant that makes food machinery. A shaft had a long keyway in it. No tolerance was actually specified. No problem ever arose because of it. Then the engineers started making changes. They ended up with an extremely close tolerance on parallelism that made the shafts extremely expensive to manufacture and added no value at all. Some people have too much time on their hands. Another problem is that tight clearances are sometimes confused with high quality. I know of one case where a large firm ordered jet engines with clearances so tight that the first thing they had to do was tear them down and loosen up the clearances before they would run.

The again you will run into a few suppliers who will bid on absolutely anything just to get the job.

Good luck. I think you are in a no win situation.