Every design process involves balancing competing considerations. You may need to balance weight and functionality, or style and affordability. Other constraints can impact the design process for any project. An obvious consideration is that you can only set a design parameter that is physically possible. You can't insist that a material must be used for a particular purpose unless your engineers have verified that they can safely use it in that way. Metal fabrication is one area that this problem can be seen. Your design team might want to use a particular metal because it is light or because of its strength, but you must balance that against other practicalities. If the metal is expensive to purchase or too hard to work with, it could make the final product too costly for the intended purpose. To make the right choice, it is best to work with a metal fabrication company.

Understanding the limitations

Sometimes a metal can be the wrong choice for your project because it has the wrong physical characteristics. At other times, a metal could be physically suitable but more difficult to cut and bend into the intended shape. Generally, the more easily a metal can be worked, the faster the metal fabrication will be, and the lower the overall cost. While the type of metal can influence the metal fabrication process, the skills of the metal fabrication company and the equipment they have available must also be considered. To find out what is possible, you must speak to the metal fabrication company.

The value of repeatability

A good metal fabrication company will take your plans and use them to create the same product perfectly every time. They may use manual workers, but much of the metal cutting is likely to be computer-controlled, ensuring that every cut will be in the same place every time the program is run on the machine. Knowing what machinery the metal fabrication company has available and how they will use it can give you the confidence that you have found the right partner for your project.

The value of tooling

Ask any prospective metal fabrication company about their equipment. Find out what laser cutting machines they have and how they will complete the required cutting and bending operations. If any special tooling must be purchased for the job, check that it will be available for use by the time your job is ready to be fabricated.