TABLE OF CONTENTS A practical understanding and knowledge of the capabilities of the equipment, machinery, and tools found in a modern manufacturing facility are of prime importance to the electro-mechanical or product design engineer. Most aspects of part design are directly related to the abilities of the equipment, tools, and machinery used to manufacture each particular part. Inexperienced product designers often design parts that simply cannot be produced practically or economically, using the equipment available at their manufacturing facilities. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the capabilities and limits of the manufacturing machinery is essential to successful design engineering practice. Much of this experience is gained through the interaction of the designer or design engineer with the manufacturing personnel who operate the various equipments and machinery in the manufacturing facility, and more important, with the manufacturing and tool engineering departments.
There are enormous varieties of modern manufacturing equipment, tools, and machinery available today. A large assortment of different machinery, tools, and equipment may be found in the medium-size manufacturing facility, and many more are found in the larger facilities. Certain machinery and equipment are indigenous to various industries such as foundries, forges, plastics molders, platers, optical facilities, extrusion facilities, and heat treaters.
The general, large manufacturing facility for mechanical type products would contain machinery and equipment similar to the following: lathes, milling machines, CNC turning centers, CNC vertical machining centers, hydraulic shears, squaring shears, stock cutting machines, boring mills, drill presses, shapers, planers, surface grinders, cylindrical grinders, EDM...
