Design guides, workflow tips, industry reports and more

Streamline your material selection process with our 3D Printing Material Selector.

Manufacturing organizations worldwide have faced and overcome incredible challenges in recent years. Yet the bullwhip effect of those issues remains in 2023. The present is marked by economic uncertainty and workforce challenges, but access to manufacturing technologies — especially those powered by artificial intelligence — is opening new pathways to success. Responding to macroeconomic forces […]

CNC Part Complexity Quiz Looking for a way to quickly and easily determine how complex your CNC machining part is? Look no further! Get started now. Request Free Trial DOWNLOAD NOW By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We may use the info you submit to contact you and […]

As the operating system for custom manufacturing, the Fictiv platform is constantly evolving. Whether it’s workflow automation, our digital quality system, or guided expertise features, every release makes it faster, easier, and more efficient to source and supply mechanical parts. So bookmark and share this page, and check back often to learn about Fictiv’s latest […]

Introduction The world is forever changed. The past two years have been exceptional in many ways, but workplaces and businesses have adapted and moved forward. The rise of remote work isn’t receding, and the need to invest in more resilient supply chains is greater than ever. And even as constraints have loosened, leaders know that […]

Uplevel your DFM knowledge with our master class. Learn about how "least effort design" can make CNC machined parts more economical, faster, and less risky to produce.

Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T or GD and T) is a language of symbols and standards designed and used by engineers and manufacturers to describe the shape (geometry) and size (dimensions) of a product and facilitate communication between entities working together to manufacture products. The US military created a proto-GD&T in the 1940s with the […]

Here at Fictiv, we’re all about speed and quality. We want you, the engineer, to get your parts on time—and to get the parts you need and were expecting. Fictiv provides more options and fewer constraints and gives you a system-level view of your design that offers a broad enough sense of how it will […]

Fictiv’s CNC Design Guide helps hardware designers and developers control costs and ensure quality CNC drilling, milling, and turning outcomes.

Aluminum Anodizing Overview The anodizing process (sometimes known as anodization) converts the surface of aluminum into a thicker, more uniform oxide layer through an electrolytic process. Electrochemically anodizing aluminum produces an aluminum oxide surface that has: Corrosion resistance A pleasing appearance Wear resistance Improved paint or adhesive bonding Improved lubricity Improved plating adhesion This article […]

What could be more exciting than the development and launch of a new product?  The rush of the experience – grounded in the hope of unprecedented success. Legendary products like Apple AirPods, which captured 60% of the market in record time and the Apple Watch, which made Apple the world’s biggest watch manufacturer in 2018, […]

Low-volume injection molding is a fast and efficient way to produce plastic parts in volumes from 100 to 10,000 pieces. It’s sometimes used for prototyping mature part designs that require real-world testing. Yet low-volume injection molding can also bridge the gap between pre-production prototyping and the full-scale production of hundreds of thousands of parts. Fictiv […]

PVC injection molding is a manufacturing process for producing parts from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), one of the world’s most commonly used plastics. PVC does not absorb moisture and has good chemical resistance. Although it’s not recommended for high-temperature applications, PVC is considered to be flame-resistant because it’s self-extinguishing.  There are two main types of PVC: […]

Parting line injection molding isn’t a special type of plastic injection molding or liquid silicone rubber injection molding. Instead, it’s used to minimize the appearance of witness lines—unavoidable marks on the surface of a part that show where the two halves of an injection mold come together.  Parting line injection molding is about minimizing flash—excess […]

Carbon fiber has an excellent strength-to-weight ratio and can achieve high stiffness levels with thin walls. It’s especially effective for aerospace, robotics, and sports equipment. Additionally, it can be relatively easy to create complex prototypes or one-off parts with carbon fiber, provided the right tools and techniques are used. This article will cover the basics […]

Fictiv, the operating system for custom manufacturing, today announced Carbon Digital Light Synthesis (DLS) 3D printing technology as part of our robust, production-level 3D printing capabilities. Carbon DLS printing offers injection molding level repeatability alongside the ability to manufacture complex geometries, similar to our stereolithography (SLA) and fused deposition modeling (FDM) options. Within this new […]

Automotive injection molding lets designers produce plastic parts for electric vehicles (EVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), and cars, trucks, and motorcycles with internal combustion engines (ICE). Although automotive plastic molding is usually associated with high-volume production, designers can also use injection molding for rapid prototyping and lower production volumes. Moreover, some automotive plastic injection molding companies […]

I’m Tim Chang, Fictiv’s Director of Engineering. Here at Fictiv, we believe the success of our business is grounded in the collective strength of three pillars that we refer to as our 3 P’s: People, Partners, and Platform. There’s a reason we count people first among them. Fictiv has grown and thrived because of the […]

Welcome to our first edition of Fictiv Life: a series where we will interview different Fictors (aka Fictiv employees) across various departments to give some insight into our incredible team.  For this edition we zoomed in with Nima Rafibakhsh, Sr. Computational Geometry Software Engineer. Nima has been with the company for five years. He has […]

Today we’re celebrating and honoring Candy Jin, our Strategic Sourcing Lead on our Feidi team in China. Candy joined Fictiv three years ago and is known for her contagious energy and negotiating prowess. Candy shared her thoughts on women’s history in China: What is a women’s empowerment moment that impacted you? Candy:  I think China “setting […]

Up next on our Celebration of Women at Fictiv is Rona Wong! Rona is a Sr. Technical Program Manager who is continuing to grow and impact our team here at Fictiv in the last four years that she has been with us. Here’s Rona’s take on Women’s History Month: What is a women’s empowerment moment […]

Today we’re spotlighting Anna Xiao. Anna is a Sr. Technical Program manager at Fictiv with an Injection Molding and CNC background. Anna takes great pride in her work and always does it with a smile. Check out Anna’s views on women empowerment: What is a women’s empowerment moment that impacted you? Anna:  In the early 1980s, […]

The women at Fictiv are extraordinary, and we’re thrilled to continue our celebration of them in honor of Women’s History Month. Today we’re spotlighting Winnie Stoeffler. Winnie is Vice President of Business Operations & Systems Strategy at Fictiv. Here are Winnie’s views on women’s empowerment: What is a women’s empowerment moment that impacted you? Winnie: […]

Fictiv’s CNC Design Guide helps hardware designers and developers control costs and ensure quality CNC drilling, milling, and turning outcomes.

Uplevel your DFM knowledge with our master class. Learn about how "least effort design" can make CNC machined parts more economical, faster, and less risky to produce.

Get our DFM for CNC machining checklist, which summarizes the essential design for manfuacturability rules engineers should apply.

Skip the questions, eliminate redundant ordering, and get the finishing option that works best for your part. With Fictiv’s CNC finishing guide, learn everything you need to know about our surface finishing capabilities. We’ll give you in-depth information on the protective properties and aesthetic benefits of each finishing option. The guide will cover a variety […]

Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T or GD and T) is a language of symbols and standards designed and used by engineers and manufacturers to describe the shape (geometry) and size (dimensions) of a product and facilitate communication between entities working together to manufacture products. The US military created a proto-GD&T in the 1940s with the […]

A collection of industry best practices, including: recommended wall thicknesses, boss design, gate types, and more. Learn about which features to consider when designing parts for injection molding and how to forecast production schedules.

Are you ready to scale up from 3D printing to injection molding? Then it’s time to tailor your part design for a process that uses metal tooling and has its own unique design requirements. This article begins with some injection molding basics and then explains how to optimize your part design to reduce tooling costs […]

Plastic injection molding can produce anywhere from a few hundred to a few million parts. To ensure that parts are produced consistently, with minimal defects, and at the lowest possible cost, designers should follow some established guidelines. Wall thickness is a key consideration critical to the success of your injection molding project.  Download Fictiv’s Injection […]

Sharp edges are beautiful: light glinting off these clean lines as a product rotates through space, music swelling dramatically in the background of a commercial. Edges are precise. Edges are distinct. Edges are horrible for injection molding. A general rule of injection molding is: Radius all edges. What do you do if your design calls […]

Design for injection molding has clear rules: Add draft. No undercuts. Round edges. Clear parting lines. Uniform walls, not too thick. But learning about advanced plastic manufacturing is like visiting Morpheus’s dojo in The Matrix: Some rules can be bent. Others can be broken. But breaking these rules is costly. Sharp edges require additional machining […]

The advent of CAD systems, additive manufacturing, and CNC machining has made the design and manufacture of complex part designs almost routine. Engineers today are being asked to design parts that will probably be exposed to many different factors, including extreme weather, chemicals, bodily fluids, high stress/high load, impact, and other elements and situations that […]

To most people, plastics might seem all the same, but to an engineer, plastics come in families, have cousin materials, and have other materials that are as different as cats are from dogs. Of course, our clients expect us to worry about these details, and as nerds, the minute differences between materials, including considerations for […]

The first step in designing a part is to determine what material it should be made out of. If you decide the part should be plastic, and it should be CNC machined, the selection does not simply stop there. There is a plethora of machinable plastic to choose from for plastic machining in 2022, each […]

Aluminum Anodizing Overview The anodizing process (sometimes known as anodization) converts the surface of aluminum into a thicker, more uniform oxide layer through an electrolytic process. Electrochemically anodizing aluminum produces an aluminum oxide surface that has: Corrosion resistance A pleasing appearance Wear resistance Improved paint or adhesive bonding Improved lubricity Improved plating adhesion This article […]

In the world of plastics, there are a lot of different options for a designer to choose from. There are so many plastic materials, in fact, that the process of selecting the proper 3D printing plastics for prototyping and subsequent manufacturing plastics for production may seem intimidating. This article seeks to clarify the main types of plastic materials […]

The advent of CAD systems, additive manufacturing, and CNC machining has made the design and manufacture of complex part designs almost routine. Engineers today are being asked to design parts that will probably be exposed to many different factors, including extreme weather, chemicals, bodily fluids, high stress/high load, impact, and other elements and situations that […]

Thermoplastics and thermoset plastics are classes of polymers used in injection molding, CNC machining, 3D printing, and urethane casting. Like elastomers, another class of polymer, thermoplastics and thermosets both consist of long, repeating chains of molecules. Under a microscope, the structure of a thermoplastic resembles a railroad track while a thermoset material looks like a […]

This article was revised by Tessa Axsom in September 2023 Even in 2023, with the rising popularity of model-based definitions, engineering drawings are still a great way to communicate design intent for CNC machined parts that require tight tolerances, material specifications, or other special requirements. That’s why many Fictiv customers in the robotics, aerospace, automotive, […]

Before the invention of CNC (Computer Numerical Control), machinists relied solely on 2D engineering drawings to determine machining steps and parameters. Manufacturing has come a long way since then, thanks to precise 3D modeling and CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) programs.  In 2022, we’re fortunate to be able to import solid 3D models into a CNC […]

Here at Fictiv, we’re all about speed and quality. We want you, the engineer, to get your parts on time—and to get the parts you need and were expecting. Fictiv provides more options and fewer constraints and gives you a system-level view of your design that offers a broad enough sense of how it will […]

What could be more exciting than the development and launch of a new product?  The rush of the experience – grounded in the hope of unprecedented success. Legendary products like Apple AirPods, which captured 60% of the market in record time and the Apple Watch, which made Apple the world’s biggest watch manufacturer in 2018, […]

Go, Go, Go—we’ve all heard the inspirational and aspirational desire of upper management to get it done, get it done right, and as always, get it done faster. One way to be more efficient as an engineer is to learn to code. In this blog post, I hope to help convince you to start coding […]

There are very few parts that function on their own—almost every design requires multiple pieces to be joined in some way to create a final product. When was the last time you had something other than a bottle opener that was a single, functional part?  When designing for a multi-part engineering build, there are extra […]

You just finished the initial design of your product, and it looks great! Well, it looks great on your computer screen. So, you decide to make a prototype and see if your design looks and works as intended in real life. Odds are that the first prototype won’t meet all of your expectations. In fact, […]

More than 3.2 million product designers and engineers use SOLIDWORKS worldwide. Fun fact: SOLIDWORKS crashed on me during a final exam once and my professor was not sympathetic — instead he decided to teach me a lesson in saving files more frequently. That lesson still haunts me over a decade later. Pro-tip: Always follow SOLIDWORKS […]

The Product Requirements Document (PRD aka Product Requirement Document) is a familiar term to most engineers. Typically, we get the PRD from a product manager; it tells us what to build but not how to build it. But let’s face it, it’s probably better that way. Engineers hate being told how to implement an idea — that’s the fun […]

Note: This article is based on a previously published version by Sylvia Wu and has been updated to reflect Fictiv’s current capabilities, as well as 2022 innovations. When designing a product for the consumer market, industrial usage, or aerospace industry, how the product looks, feels, and functions is critical. Color, material and finish (CMF) are […]

In the product design world, it’s common to use a tool called a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) to improve a design or process. FMEAs are commonly separated into two different categories, depending on their application: A Design FMEA (D-FMEA) is used in product design to identify possible design weaknesses and failure modes. A […]

Any professional mechanical engineer knows that Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is an essential tool used to analyze stress (deflection, FOS, and more) in a design based on different loading conditions. A huge part of conducting FEA centers around research. When you start the process, you don’t yet know what you don’t know. You need to […]

Steve Jobs once said, “Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It’s about saying no to all but the most crucial features.” As part of the I.D. product development team at Apple, I had the remarkable experience of observing this philosophy firsthand. I sat in on many design team meetings where new and innovative […]

This article was originally published in February, 2017 by Humberto Villasenor. The content has been updated. Understanding the differences between the mechanical properties of strength vs. stiffness vs. hardness is foundational in mechanical engineering, yet these properties are often confused. These properties are related, but they have important differences:  For this article, we’ll review the […]

example dowel pin interference fit table

Designing components with snap-fits can save you time and money in production by reducing material costs and part quantities, as well as making assembly easier. In the past, injection molding was the only viable method for producing snap-fit joints in plastics. However, today 3D printing has opened up both new opportunities and challenges in their […]

Have you recently assembled Ikea furniture? If so, I apologize. I send my condolences for the frustration you experienced when the holes did not line up with the pins you put in other holes or when you realized you were missing a fastener. The good news is that you did gain something from the experience […]

Design guidelines for waterproof enclosure design, as well as IP68 waterproof rating design.

We get a lot of questions about the best methods for fastening different 3D printed components. When prototyping hardware products — like electronics enclosures or robotic assemblies — you often need to design mating structures that are more complex than a single 3D printed component. Other times, you may need to print components larger than […]

When designing plastic components, it’s often necessary to add ribs and gussets to improve the stiffness and strength of load-bearing features. This reduces material volume and optimizes print time for 3D printed parts, since it takes longer to make these features solid structures (print time is largely driven by the volume of material for a […]

In a world of ever-increasing electronics, our lives are continuously impacted by devices that incorporate some sort of heat-generating circuitry. When it comes to electronics that dissipate power in the form of heat during normal operation, it is often necessary to manage this heat, to ensure the components don’t exceed their maximum allowable temperatures. One […]

Light plays an important role in the design of many hardware products. Often, they are both decorative and functional. Indicator lights are the most minimal user interface: They tell you whether the device is turned on, low on battery, or “thinking” really hard. On modern electronics, the light’s source is almost always an LED. However, […]

Fillets are one of those mysterious design features for which there seem to be no clearly defined rules. Either a part is entirely devoid of fillets, and most or all edges are well-defined, or the part’s designer decided to take the opposite route, and every single edge and corner is rounded with some size of […]

Improving part stiffness is critical for load bearing applications, and can be accomplished through both design geometry and material properties. In this article, we’ll employ many of the same formulas we discussed in our previous article about leveraging geometric structures to improve stiffness. However, here we’ll focus on material selection, altering the properties of materials […]

There’s a reason kids love Lego. When I was a kid, nothing was more valuable to me than my big blue bucket of the multi-colored bricks. Even when my parents encouraged my interest in engineering with more complex Fischer Technics, nothing replaced the joy of quickly snapping pieces together in increasingly complex shapes. Wouldn’t it […]

While the power of a hardware product comes from its internal components, a product is typically recognized by its enclosure, the outer shell that encloses electronic products, making them appealing and user-friendly. In this post, I’m going to walk you through the steps for designing a basic enclosure, using the design of a IoT plant […]

In 2006, Nintendo took the world of interactive gaming by storm. The launch of the Wii welcomed gamers and, more importantly, non-gamers alike to physically interact with a virtual world. Whether the user was playing a competitive round of Wii Tennis or customizing their Mii, the Wii remote (otherwise known as the Wiimote) invited users […]

During pandemic lockdown, I noticed several issues with my home, including the broken sprinkler head, dog stains on the carpet, and my mother’s spice cabinet. My mother has a metric ton of spices that used to have labels that have rubbed off after constant use. I bought a portable label maker to replenish the labels […]

One of the coolest things about Fictiv’s San Francisco HQ office is that it’s dog-friendly! Our furry friends can work alongside us everyday, getting their daily dose of head scratches and belly rubs, and we get a daily dose of adorableness. For National Dog Day, we thought it would be fitting to test out and […]

For our teardown of the Anki Vector Robot, we were joined in the studio by Leanne Cushing, captain of Team Valkyrie on Battlebots.  Anki’s Vector Robot, released in late 2018, was designed to listen and respond to its user, interact with its surroundings, recognize people and objects, and avoid obstacles. When released, the robot sold […]

In this clean-shaven teardown, we’re celebrating Father’s Day and looking at two different electric shavers—the Philips Norelco S9311 and the Braun series 7. We put the two shavers head to head, with our first Fictiv employee to become a dad volunteering his face to see which one left the best shave. Then we put them […]

Each year, Fictiv conducts a survey of industry leaders on a variety of topics related to manufacturing, including the current macroeconomic environment, productivity, technology, the global supply chain, and sustainability.

Manufacturing organizations worldwide have faced and overcome incredible challenges in recent years. Yet the bullwhip effect of those issues remains in 2023. The present is marked by economic uncertainty and workforce challenges, but access to manufacturing technologies — especially those powered by artificial intelligence — is opening new pathways to success. Responding to macroeconomic forces […]

Introduction The world is forever changed. The past two years have been exceptional in many ways, but workplaces and businesses have adapted and moved forward. The rise of remote work isn’t receding, and the need to invest in more resilient supply chains is greater than ever. And even as constraints have loosened, leaders know that […]

Discover insights from a survey of over 200 senior manufacturing decision makers.

Conducted with Dimensional Research, the fifth annual manufacturing industry report polled hundreds of senior manufacturing and supply chain decision makers at companies producing medical device, robotics, automotive, aerospace, and consumer electronics products. Key themes from the 30-page report found: COVID-19 Has Negatively Harmed Most Businesses (89%) and Industries Digital and AI Advances are Important, But […]

2018 was full of challenges (old and new) for product developers bringing new products to market. Agility is key in the midst of trade tensions 62% say tariffs have increased their material/component costs More teams are turning to local options for prototyping and production manufacturing Bridging the production gap is still high risk 30% of respondents don’t […]

How Product Innovation is Demanding More from Traditional Manufacturing As hardware developers compete to bring advanced technologies like augmented reality and autonomous mobility to market, development speeds are increasing — yet too often, manufacturing is a source of limiting friction. In a special webinar, Jay Rogers and Mike Geyer discuss the themes uncovered in Fictiv’s […]

To transform an idea into a commercially-viable hardware product requires vast reserves of curiosity, creativity, and grit. But there are so many valuable learnings along the way that can make the process of hardware development more seamless and efficient. Things like: part symmetry is your friend. And you should never underestimate the value of strategic […]

The hardware industry is growing at an exhilarating pace. More companies are developing innovative products, we have better tools for prototyping and manufacturing, and access to these tools—and the knowledge around how to use them—is becoming more universally available. But we still have a ways to go before hardware development can be truly accessible to […]

It’s important for every new product introduction team to consider how to manage against risk in their supply chain, in order to avoid disruption. After you identify your high-level business objectives, I recommend four actionable strategies for supply chain risk mitigation:  Dual/triple source for components where applicable Plan proactively against future scenarios Maintain visibility through […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major disruptive force for robotics companies of all sizes and sectors. With shelter-in-place regulations established first in China, then Europe, and now sweeping across North America, robotics manufacturers and OEMs alike are forced to navigate mandatory closures, material shortages, importation road blocks, and remote work scenarios. These roadblocks can […]

Healthcare’s digital evolution is real. It’s happening at every stage of the value chain in every segment of this critical space. Tightened development cycles, resilient supply chains that support rapid change while diminishing risk, and vigorous controls, certifications, and traceability models to ensure patient safety are important steps on a path to a viable healthcare […]

Recently I sat down with MacroFab CEO Misha Govshteyn to talk about building supply chain resilience, during a webinar hosted by industry journalist Philip Stoten. We looked at supply chains in the COVID-19 era and explored how we got here, then discussed the digitally connected supply chain of the future. How we got here: a perfect […]

This week we brought together two guests who have not just spent years in the manufacturing and supply chain industries, but who are regularly published as experts in their field. First up was Sarah Barnes-Humphrey, founder and host of podcast and blog “Let’s Talk Supply Chain” (LTSC). With 20 years in logistics and supply chain, Sarah […]

Unpredictability and disruption in the supply chain world are often thought about, yet rarely prepared for. With the global spread of COVID-19, manufacturing has changed dramatically over the last few months, and it seems as if there’s no end in sight.  Last week, we hosted a webinar on the Hidden Costs of Supply Chain Unpredictability, […]

SAN FRANCISCO, November 15, 2023 – Fictiv, the operating system for custom manufacturing, today announced the addition of Carbon Digital Light Synthesis™ (DLS) technology to its catalog of on-demand 3D printing services in the USA. This new offering follows a major 3D printing service expansion giving customers access to industrial additive solutions fit for advanced […]

Monterrey, Mexico, October 31, 2023 – Fictiv, the operating system for custom manufacturing, is proud to announce the addition of Mexico to its global network of manufacturing partners. This supply chain expansion provides customers with more production options in North America to mitigate the risk of supply chain disruption and deliver fast, on-demand manufacturing services […]

Newly expanded capabilities, advanced configuration options, and a significant pricing reduction delivers full-suite additive manufacturing capabilities for prototyping & production in the USA. SAN FRANCISCO, October 17, 2023 – Fictiv, the operating system for custom manufacturing, today announced a series of exciting new updates to its 3D printing service in order to meet the needs […]

Sherman will lead Fictiv’s USA manufacturing operations, supporting demand for on-shoring and production-level capabilities. San Francisco, October 3, 2023 – Fictiv, the operating system for custom manufacturing,  today announced the appointment of Andy Sherman to General Manager, USA.  This appointment comes in response to customer demand for on-shore and hybrid manufacturing solutions to mitigate supply […]

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a widely celebrated holiday throughout Asia and is fast approaching. This festival celebrates the end of the autumn harvest and is similar to Thanksgiving in the US. This year, the festival falls on September 29th.   Additionally, October 2nd through the 6th in mainland China is National Day Golden Week, which celebrates […]

Manufacturers increasingly agree sustainability is a priority but are still struggling to meet gaps in technology and measurement to meet new standards headed into 2024 SAN FRANCISCO, September 19, 2023 — Fictiv, the operating system for custom manufacturing, announced today the release of new survey data focused on sustainability in manufacturing, conducted in partnership with […]