10
Dec
"Can You Design This…?"
Odds are, yes. We can design just about anything you can describe to us! Can we produce one of them, next week, to fit your budget? Now that’s the hard part!
New products take time to develop right. A quick description has to be written down or sketched out to give it a solid foundation. Something concrete has to be there, so that all the requirements that can be implicitly hung on an idea can be spelled out. Your requirements will drive every other step in the process, because a design that misses some critical requirement is worse than useless in the end.
Requirements will include the dimensions of the design, the minimal function, any bonus functionality, an allowable time line, a typical order quantity and a target price. At a bare minimum! The more details can be provided up front, the faster an idea can be formalized into a design.
Sketches help but they don’t speed up the process. A good machine shop will not accept a quick sketch – this is their contractual document, and they don’t want to misunderstand their instructions! A good drawing will have to take into account the capabilities of the machine shop; some drawings simply cannot be physically recreated without specialized machinery.
The material selection has to be reasonable, balancing cost with availability and machinability. The best material for the job may be absolutely impossible to work with! And, it may not be available without months of lead time.
Finally, the cost will always depend on the number of units. Small batches cost the same to set up as big batches – pretty much – but a big production run can distribute the set-up charges a lot further.
It’s always worth asking. Sometimes the requirements need to change, but usually we can find a way to produce something that works for you.
Build a thousand, it’s mass-produced. Build one, and it’s a work of art. One Mona Lisa; One Spruce Goose; One Golden Gate Bridge.
If you want a work of art, we can produce it. But it will take a little extra.
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11
Jan
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Our Line Blowing Equipment promotion has started the year with a bang! Pretty much everything in the Line Blowing section of the catalog is on special through January.
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3
Dec
Supporting the Arts
Oh, this is great! Our 00505 Line Swivels are typically used for overhead line stringing or underground pulling operations. But Mel Ristau is a Colorado artist who has applied our Line Swivels to support his dynamic, illuminating...
23
Nov
Another Good Idea: Making Dewatering Easier
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27
Oct
New Manufacturing Tools = Better DCD Products
Here's a quick shot of our pin-marker in action - now that the blog links are repaired!
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25
Aug
Breaking Things!
Engineering is fun! To make sure that our products will stand up to contractors' use and abuse, I've got to go out and break our gear on a regular basis. Do I mind? No!
The challenge...
16
Jul
Things are a-foot!
DCD Design is making arrangements to open a new warehouse in the Midwest, to provide immediate support to our customers when they need it - "NOW!"
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11
Jun
New Videos!
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1
Jun
Back to the Lab!
We had a busy morning, tensile testing at the material lab: our semi-annual destructive tests of the 00505 Series Line Swivels once again confirmed their rated load capacities. Combined with the full material traceability inherent in our production...
31
Mar
What's Up, Duckt?
NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT: a new Innerduct Pulling Eye for 1-3/4" (or 50mm) nominal duct! This "carrot" fills out the 00604 Series Lugged pullers to cover any duct between 3/4" and 2" - including a 1-1/4" fine-thread version especially for...
19
Mar
DCD Duct Pullers Get a Mention
We have a new video on Youtube, showing how to change out shoulder bolts on the big 00620 Series Duct Pullers! The 10" & 12" Pullers have removable shells so that you can swap in the appropriate size,...