READOS / Manufacturing
Manufacturing Operations and Design for Manufacture
Make or buy, forecasting, flow, BOMs, fixtures, fabrication, plastics, additive, automation and exporting.
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- 01Make or buy: choosing between in-house manufacturing and outsourcingA practical framework for deciding whether to make parts in-house or outsource them: volume, utilisation, capability, cost, control, risk and how to protect your design.
- 02Demand forecasting for small manufacturers: matching supply with demand without drowning in stockPractical forecasting and planning for small manufacturers: simple forecasting methods, measuring forecast error, safety stock, reorder points, order quantities and a monthly planning meeting.
- 03Cutting lead time with flow and pull: batch sizes, work in progress, cells and kanbanMost of a job's lead time is spent waiting, not being worked on. How work in progress, batch size and utilisation drive lead time, and how flow, cells and pull signals shorten it.
- 04Modelling bills of materials and other hierarchies: structures, where-used questions and revisions in business systemsBills of materials, asset registers, locations and cost centres are hierarchies. How systems store them, explode and trace them, handle revisions and avoid the common errors.
- 05Designing jigs and fixtures that pay for themselves: locating, clamping, mistake-proofing and the business caseA good fixture makes the right way the easy way. How to locate parts on datums, clamp without distortion, build in mistake-proofing, design for welding and people, and judge the payback.
- 06Designing sheet metal parts for economical manufacture: bends, holes, flat patterns, fasteners and tolerancesSheet metal parts are cheap when designed for the cutter and press brake. How to set bend radii, place holes and flanges, get flat patterns right and tolerance folded parts.
- 07Welded joints for fabricators: processes, design, procedures, qualification and inspectionGood welds come from a system, not just a skilled hand. How to choose the process, specify joints, control procedures and qualifications, manage distortion and inspect to the right level.
- 08Designing plastic parts for injection moulding: walls, draft, ribs, bosses, gates and toolingInjection moulding makes cheap parts from expensive tools, so design errors are costly. How to set walls, draft, ribs and bosses, plan gates and shrinkage, and make sound tooling decisions.
- 09Additive manufacturing for production parts: when 3D printing earns a place on the lineBeyond prototypes: the main additive processes, design for additive manufacturing, post-processing, qualifying printed parts for real use and how to tell when printing beats tooling on cost.
- 10Storing machine and sensor data in manufacturing: historians, time-series databases and data engineers can useMachines and sensors produce millions of readings a day. How to collect, timestamp, name, compress, store and secure them, and link them to production context so they answer real questions.
- 11Automation, AI and the manufacturing workforce: how factory jobs are changing and how to prepareHow automation, robotics, machine vision and AI are changing manufacturing work, which roles are growing, the skills that matter, and how employers and workers can manage the transition.
- 12Exporting for small manufacturers: readiness, choosing markets, pricing, logistics and getting paidA practical guide for small Australian manufacturers starting to export: export readiness, choosing products and markets, finding buyers, pricing and Incoterms, logistics, payment methods and support.
These topic-based reading collections are organised alphabetically; chapters may be read in any order.
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