Product design optimization in the automotive industry for plastic injection components

Client background

Our client, a leading manufacturer of cars components, was looking for ways to optimize its products designs and. The products that we targeted at first with this client are of the metal machined category. Then we tackled the plastic injection category.

Our way of Design-to-Cost

Defining Cost-drivers’ ranges

in the ‘Reverse-costing’ module, we give the tool the range of each numerical and non-numerical cost-driver according to the degree of tolerance accepted for the specific product. For example, we will indicate that our product can be manufactured using either black or grey coating. 

Using the plastic injection model

Using the database provided by the client, a costing model was created on easyKost. This model was then used by different product designers accross many Business Units to make various designs for new components that had to be purchased with the given budget.

The following were the most received feedbacks from the regular users of the model :

• Unmatched speed for new design creations
• Very interesting products that were never thought of before

Application to client’s other categories

The same logic and process were used on many other categories of products for this client which will be shown in a separate Business case

Results

Many metrics were used to track the progress. The below numbers are the main takeaways of this business case: