Design for Manufacturing

Design for Manufacturing (DFM) is the practice of designing parts and products to be easy and cost-effective to manufacture. Good DFM reduces production costs by 20-50%, minimizes quality issues, and shortens lead times — all without compromising part functionality. Key DFM principles include: minimizing tight tolerances to only critical features, designing uniform wall thicknesses, providing adequate draft angles, avoiding undercuts where possible, and selecting materials that are readily available and compatible with your chosen manufacturing process. OrderCAD provides free DFM analysis with every quote. Our engineers review your CAD files and provide actionable recommendations to optimize your design for the target manufacturing process — whether CNC machining, injection molding, sheet metal, or 3D printing.