Are you looking for ways to reduce costs on your precision metal stamping projects? One of the first places to look is on the factory floor. How much of the expensive precision metal stamping material you purchase for your stamping projects winds up as scrap? Intelligent usage of material through innovative design and engineering can significantly reduce the amount of waste.
Source: PMA Design Guidelines
Material Utilization Affects Costs.
Nesting parts in sheet or strip stock can significantly reduce the amount of scrap generated in blanking operations, and is particularly successful with large L- and C-shaped parts. The amount of material that can be saved by slightly changing the design without changing its function is often worthwhile. An example is shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Nesting of blanks, as evidenced by this redesign of a V-shaped part, can dramatically increase material utilization thereby cutting material cost.
The slide forming process allows the fabrication of many parts using the net strip width and little or no scrap between blanks, see Figure 9.
Figure 9. Examples of parts fabricated using net material width.