5.

PROCESS SELECTION

As we saw, function depend on a combination of material and shape of the part we choose (using
the Ashby method) that affects the process selection. The shape and the material of the product
gives some constraints to the process selection. They filter out some processes that cannot be
used.
Overall, the best process is the one that makes the part at the cheapest cost. Process selection in
industrial manufacturing is actually selecting those technologies that allow to produce the product
cheaply, conveniently.
In order to select a process among all processes, processes have to be classified for a correct
selection.

Processes categorization
Primary processes generate the main shape of the part (e.g. casting, forging, deformations
processes and injection molding).
Primary/secondary processes can generate the main shape of the part and form or refine features
on the part (e.g. machining). Machining is used to refine the draft of the shape and get to the
target/final shape. Machining can be used alone as a primary process, from the stock/piece of
material (convenient for the manufacturing of only one piece), or can be used after a primary
process so a near-net-shape is manufactured (for large production volume).
Tertiary processes do not affect the geometry of the part and always appear after primary and
primary/secondary processes (surface treatments and heat treatments). They modify the
appearance of the product. It requires the choosing of a chain of processes.
Adding secondary or tertiary processes to the process chain means adding cost. The shorter the
process chain the better in terms of cost. That’s why for many applications only primary
processes / net-shape processes, such as injection molding are used.

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Typical process chain:

Selection of manufacturing processes

In general, the process selection is difficult for different reasons:
 Many combinations of processes and materials are not possible. Some processes are not
possible after others.
 Many combinations of processes are not possible and, therefore, do not appear in any
processing sequences.
 Some processes only affect one attribute of the part, particularly surface treatment
processes.
 Sequences of processes have a natural order of shape generation, followed by feature
addition or refinement by material removal and then material property enhancement.

Let’s see the method used for the selection of processes in a Systematic and quantitative way.
Ashby proposed the 4 following basic steps:
 Step 1, Translation: Express design requirements as constraints & objectives.
 Step 2, Screening: Eliminate processes that cannot do the job, eliminate the processes that to
not satisfy the constraints.
 Step 3, Ranking: Find the processes that do the job most cheaply, we rank the candidates using
the criteria of cost.
 Step 4, Supporting information: explore pedigrees of top-ranked candidates. Because there are
thousands of variants of processes, supporting information plays a particularly important role.

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Example: translation for a spark-plug insulator
Spark-plug insulators are used in engines to ignites fuel in the engine.

Function: the component has to insulate the central electrode from the body shell.
Constraints: criteria/limits that we use to filter out processes that cannot be used.
 All the possible processes selected need to be compatible with the material (alumina), they
have to be able to change the shape of an alumina piece.
 The shape has to be compatible with the processes and viceversa, shape is a criterion that
tells that some processes cannot be used (being hollow extrusion cannot be used).
 Some processes are not able to process pieces with big masses or volumes or with thin
volumes.
 Some processes are not suitable for very thin or too thick sections (injection molding for
example).
 Tolerances and roughness are related to how precise the technology used is.
 Batch size filter out processes based on the volume of production. Some processes are
economically sustainable only when we produce high quantities of the product (injection
molding or die casting have an high fixed initial cost, so they are convenient when we have
high volumes of production).
Objective: it will always be to minimize the cost. We need to find a way to calculate the fabrication
cost / the manufacturing cost. The manufacturing cost is not a constant, it depends on production
volume. To minimize cost, costs of different processes have to be plotted because they are variable
(they are functions).
Free variable: choice of process.

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Apply a series of screening stages
Similarly to what we did with material selection,
databases with sheets, tables, charts can be used
to filter out process that have ranges for some
criteria; if the requirement (constraint) does not
fall in the range then that process is eliminated.

Data Organization: the Process Tree

Some criteria are quantitative, are numbers,

they are expressed in forms of figures, so it’s
easy to select the possible processes by
checking the ranges.
Instead, other criteria such as compatibility
with materials and shape are not quantitative,
it’s a relation, and so they are difficult to
express. So, each process is connected to some
materials and to some shapes, and these
connections filter out the unusable processes.

Some information are expressed in terms of figures, and so they can be compared, other
information are expressed in terms of shape and material compatibility, so relational databases are
necessary.

Every process is described in database with a record:

Structural data. Unstructural data

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Material compatibility
Some tables can be used to express, to visualize the material compatibility:

Shape classification
Compatibility of a specific process with some shapes can be expressed by defining the shapes.

Prismatic: Extruded parts,

with uniform cross sections.
Sheet: Size much smaller on
one side compared to the
others, uniform thickness.
3-D: Complex parts, extend in
space, variations of thickness,
variation of section.

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General Shape Attributes
More specific attributes, that can be used to filter out processes. List of specific shape attributes:
 Depressions: the ability to form recessesor grooves in the surfaces of the part (possibility to
form recesses in one or more directions).
 Uniform wall: uniform wall thickness.
 Uniform cross section: parts where any cross sections normal to a part axis are identical,
excluding drafts.
 Axis of rotation: parts that are solids of revolution; it has a symmetry, the part can be
design with rotation.
 Regular cross section: cross sections normal to the part’s axis contain a regular pattern;
regular geometrical shape of the cross section.
 Captured cavities: the ability to form cavities with reentrant surfaces.
 Enclosed: parts that are hollow and completely enclosed.
 Draft-free-surfaces: the capability of producing constant cross sections in the direction of
tooling motion; draft-free means to have vertical walls.
It is important to check to compatibility of the process with the general shape attributes, that
describe the complexity of a part. So, when need to know the process capabilities.

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Ranking - Process cost
The ranking allows to screen out the processes, based on the mentioned criteria. When all the not
suitable processes are filtered out, the remaining ones have to be ranked, plotted and compared
one another.
But most of the time the process cost is variable, depends on the number of parts that are
produced, if the number of parts increases the process cost per part decreases.
However, for additive manufacturing and machining the process cost do not depend on the
number of parts produced. They plot as a straight horizontal line in the graph of cost per part –
number of parts.

To plot relative cost per component for die casting or sand-casting products, we add up the
material cost c m, the labor cost (process cost) and we have to add the cost that depends on
production volume. The asymptote is the sum of material and labor cost.
The higher the investment initially required in the tool, the higher the intersection.
Die casting relies on a permanent steel mold, that is expensive. While sand casting relies on a mold
made of sand, cheaper, but process has a high labor cost.
The asymptote is higher for sand casting than die casting, this because die casting is automatic,
there are no people around the machine, while sand casting needs a lot of people around the
machine.
Before intersection sand casting is convenient while after intersection die casting is convenient.
This plot is called the Break-even plot.

TEST QUESTION!!!!!!!: WHAT TOOL IN THE PROCESS SELECTION METHOD DO YOU USE TO SELECT
THE BEST PROCESS, THE CHEAPEST ONE, IN TERMS ON MINIMIZING THE COST OF THE PROCESS?

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The tool used to select the best process is the Break-even plot: I plot the cost per parts versus the
number of parts, the production volume per each technology, that I am raking, because they
satisfy the constraints. I choose the one that has the lowest cost per part.
There is no one best option: it depends on production volume, on the number of components, it
depends on forecasts.

The more complex the technology is the higher the

initial investment and the lower the asymptote, given
by the summation of material and labor costs.

TEST QUESTION!!!!!!!
By plotting all the common manufacturing technologies (machining, injection molding, additive
manufacturing, die casting) using two criteria, initial investment and labor involvement, the aim is
to understand which are the capital-intensive processes and the labor-intensive processes.

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