Understanding the Complexity of Everyday Products

Objects we use every day consist of several parts. The parts count of a coffee maker is 45, with parts like a rocker switch and heating element, whereas a dryer has 125, including springs and motors. The complexity of cars is increased by 30,000 parts, which include switches and sensors. While these components have been designed over thousands of engineering hours, it may be challenging to locate them.

Difficulties in Sourcing Component Data

Engineers can collect component data for their designs using a variety of techniques, each with pros and cons of their own. These include… 

DIY Redraw: Engineers can redraw the parts themselves.Although this approach is adaptable and permits the creation of personalized forms, it is laborious, prone to error, and slow in terms of turnaround and revision times. 

Request Data From Manufacturer: Manufacturers are a direct source of data for engineers. Although this guarantees accuracy, it has a slow turnaround and review time and is constrained by the variety of brands and formats that are accessible.

User-Generated Resources: Crowdsourced design resources are available through platforms such as GrabCAD. These offer a wide range of products, but the information is less trustworthy because it is user-generated rather than manufacturer-certified. Furthermore, the content is frequently unbranded and generic, which makes the post-download purchase procedure more difficult.

Download On-Demand: Engineers can source design files directly from manufacturers. This is restricted to particular brands but offers current, accurate data in a variety of formats in a short amount of time.

Component search engines: These offer a wide range of brands and goods, together with consistently updated and maintained manufacturer-certified data. Their effective service is demonstrated by their quick response time and availability of changes in more than 100 formats.

A Day in the Life of an Engineer

A major portion of an engineer’s workday involves locating the proper parts. Searching for component data takes up to sixty minutes a day for forty-five percent of design engineers. Up to 625 hours and $70,000 a year can be spent by an engineer due to this inefficiency. It’s obvious that a more efficient procedure is needed.

What is the solution? 3Dfindit

By providing on-demand product configurations in more than 100 formats, 3Dfindit tackles these issues. In-depth PDF datasheets, links to 6,000 manufacturers, and trillions of manufacturer-certified products are all accessible through it. Engineers save time and money by using this platform, which streamlines searches and standardizes parts.

Deconstructing the Things We Use Every Day: How Engineers Find, Source, and Design Components
Source: 3Dfindit.com