Material metrics for concurrent product and process design

When exploring the correlation of manufacturing precision quality and cost, there is a prevalent misconception that precision machining quality automatically entails high cost – meaning if the manufacturing work–groups try to increase the given part precision (e.g., machining quality, bore roundness, surface finish, texture, etc.), the expenses associated with it go up. This is not necessarily true, if alternative manufacturing processes and materials are considered as part of this equation. This paper describes a series of material metrics for such trade–off assessments. These material metrics gives the concurrent teams a set of decision tools for coming up with an optimized set of product attributes. This occurs during a concurrent engineering session for a product's design and development towards its inception to a finished product.