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Project review and verification—risk management
Project review and verification— risk management
9
What is product development really about—it’s about creating the next best widget, right? Well, that is at least a romantic’s view. In reality, it is creating the next product or service that can generate the revenue to see the company through the next few years without putting the company in any further risk. If you think about everything we have discussed thus far in this book, I mean really give it some thought; it is really all about creating opportunity while limiting risk. There it is, said out in the open, this is not a creative lifestyle at all, it’s an ultra-conservative lifestyle. Wow, my balloon is now fully deflated, here I thought of myself as a starving artist type; well at least the starving part was close to realistic. Full review and thorough verification of the design before sending the first purchase order out for any capital tooling is only natural. Spend a week or two doing the due diligence before several hundreds of thousands of dollars or more is committed. Remember, once you step off that 30th floor balcony and begin the earthbound trip it is extremely hard to turn back. The following few topics are a mere listing of procedural steps encountered on most development projects. Use these as a potential reminder list so that, as they say, no stone is left unturned.
9.1 Gather the verification team As with our design reviews during conceptual development and detailed development, we need to identify the stakeholders at this stage of the program and make sure that each is represented well for the verification review discussions and consensus. Remember this is the final review prior to committing valuable company resources and funds for the project.
9.1.1 Design and engineering team Members of the design and engineering team need to be available to bring the history of the trade-off decisions that were made as a part of the design process. In any validation/verification discussion there are always questions about “why” a certain feature or structural element was used and “why wasn’t” this and such feature or material used or selected. The design and engineering team needs to be able to address such questions to ensure that every decision was and has been thoroughly vetted in the proposed final design.
Designing Successful Products with Plastics. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-44501-6.00009-X Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Designing Successful Products with Plastics
9.1.2 Management team Management team will be the recipient of the results from implementation of the proposed final design into a product. They will be the heroes if the product is successful but will also need to accept responsibility if the product fails. They have already authorized the funding and resources to get the project though development; now they will be asked to authorize potentially much larger sums for the capital required to prepare, to build, and launch the product. Management should be the most interested group in the room and should be asking the toughest questions.
9.1.3 Marketing team Like management team, the marketing team will be accepting the responsibility to generate sales for the new product and will, like management, suffer should the product fail. Hence, marketing should have a keen interest in ensuring the product can perform as needed and can be manufactured at the price point necessary to compete in the marketplace.
9.1.4 Quality assurance team Quality Assurance members should be prepared to support the design team with information regarding their quality plan for qualification and for production implementation. These plans, coupled with the actual design, when assessed against the functional specification should provide management with the full story of how the proposed design will satisfy the market “need” and do so without undue risk to the organization.
9.1.5 Other potential stakeholders In addition to the highlighted stakeholders, others may be considered for inclusion in the verification review group. These can include: legal counsel, operations, manufacturing, a potentially critical material supplier or subcontract vendor, strategic sourcing, and others within the organization that might have valuable input or who could be impacted, either positively or negatively, by the implementation of the design.
9.2 Verification of the design The verification review team, comprising the members as described earlier, will be the responsible group for final approval of the design prior to implementation; they will put the puzzle together, so to speak, for the final move to commercialization of the product. In a perfect world, the verification team will require the design team to prepare a presentation outlining the proposed design, the budget, the QA plans, the functional specification, and all other relevant information. The presentation should be circulated to everyone in the group prior to the review meeting, allowing everyone
Project review and verification—risk management
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Figure 9.1 The verification team reviews the information gathered thus far in the project and then set out to solve the puzzle and create the optimum implementation plan. Source: Photo from iStock/.
on the verification team to become familiar, with the information and prepare for the review meeting adequately. Each member will need to come to the review meeting with their particular puzzle piece ready to mix and match with every other team members piece, attempting to find the optimum implementation plan (Fig. 9.1).
9.2.1 Review the design against the written functional specification The functional specification is the primary reference document against which the design will be verified. The proposed design should be reviewed and tested against each attribute or functional requirement within the specification. Some groups use a grading system wherein the proposed design is scored on a 1–10 basis against each functional requirement. For example, a score of 1 might represent the lowest condition, such as “does not meet the requirement at all” a score of 10 might represent “exceeds the requirement” and a score of 5 might be “meets the minimum necessary for the requirement,” and so on. The proposed design should be tested against every attribute or requirement within the written specification, do not skip a single requirement. Any testing results and observations compiled during the prototype testing or analysis should be available to be reviewed by the verification review team.
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Designing Successful Products with Plastics
9.2.2 Review the design against the conceptual and final design review notes Notes from both the conceptual design review and the final detailed design review will often highlight features and functions of concern to those review groups. It is wise to go through those and ensure that whatever concerns were discussed in those reviews were indeed addressed and do not still pose any concern. The design team should be prepared to highlight any changes implemented as a result of the discussions from both the conceptual and the detailed design review sessions.
9.2.3 Review the design against the budget and costing targets Unlike the previous design review, the group should now have detailed cost estimates for both the capital investment required to implement the project and the per-unit costing once in a production context. Given this fairly precise financial information, management can determine the potential margins based on the proposed price structure from marketing. Any surprises in per-unit costing or in capital funds required will certainly be topics for review and discussion by the group. Design and engineering should be prepared to support decisions or features that increase cost or capital requirements over or above the preliminary budgets earlier in the project. Conversely, design and engineering should be prepared to show the group any proposed additional features or capital additions which might bring value to the program either at present or in the near future. Sometimes these proposed additional features or capital improvements come in the form of statements such as “once in production and once sales are meeting expectations, we can foresee increasing capacity and lowering per unit costs by implementing a new piece of equipment and process which will require a capital expenditure in the neighborhood of …” or similar. Management will often be pleased to see staged implementation where the capital investments can be gated according to results in the market. For many capital requirements this is not possible, we must build the mold or tooling before we can mold or process the part. However, we can sometimes plan the staged implementation; for example, build a single cavity mold in a mold base designed for two cavities, or perhaps even four, thereby limiting the upfront capital requirements but allow room for future capacity increase and cost reduction.
9.2.4 Review FMEA results for the design During project verification it is prudent to review the failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) results with the group. This is as much about proving that the risks have truly been reviewed and to the greatest extent possible reduced, as it is to refresh the groups awareness that failures do still happen and that we must be prepared for them. Quality assurance members will want to illustrate any procedures or system checks developed to be implemented as a direct result of any FMEA attribute or condition. The design team will want to illustrate any design changes or remedial actions implemented to correct any attribute or condition from the FMEA. All of this should build confidence in the project and provide the due diligence comfort needed by the group to verify and approve the project.
Project review and verification—risk management
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9.2.5 Review any intellectual property analysis or opinion on the design Any potential infringement issues should be resolved prior to this verification review meeting, however, they should be discussed in group; especially highlighting areas where there is a need to be careful with respect to some other intellectual property. This is as much to educate the design and engineering staff as it is to illustrate to marketing what not to highlight in their promotional materials and advertising. Any potential licensing deals to assist with any infringement issues should be reviewed and discussed. The group should be advised whether the presence of any of these agreements should be public knowledge, or should be kept company confidential. Any proprietary information that will not be part of any patent application should be identified and the group should be clear that the information considered proprietary is not to be used or disclosed, in any form, for any reason. This proprietary information may indeed not be technical information at all, rather it may be the market rollout plans, or the market research results, or other nontechnical, nonpatentable information which could be of great benefit to a rival or competitive organization. In addition, any patent or trademark applications which have been made or are in process should be discussed so that everyone in the group understands the importance of each. Marketing should be promoting any product on which a patent application has been filed as a “patent pending” product. Likewise, all trademarks should be identified as such on all promotional or advertising copy.
9.3 Agreement to move to production implementation planning Once all pertinent data and issues have been reviewed, the group must come to a consensus to proceed to production implementation. If the group cannot do this, then the issues preventing the agreement need to be identified and the responsible parties need to be identified and tasked with resolving the issues or finding the requisite information needed to gain full verification and agreement to approve and move forward. Once agreement and approval to proceed is achieved, the group begins the next phase of work preparing for production. Getting our ducks in a row, or structuring the functional groups for effective transition to implementation is the goal.
9.3.1 Review production estimates and timeline Now that the project review is complete, the group should review the preliminary plans for said implementation, including the timeline estimates and overall implementation schedule. While representatives from most functional groups are still together in the review session, with all of the project details are fresh in their minds, it is an excellent time to discuss how to arrange the implementation schedule for maximum efficiency and effectiveness. This is the time to identify the critical milestones in the timeline which will drive the schedule and provide the decision points for critical marketing roll-out campaigns, and so on.
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Designing Successful Products with Plastics
9.3.2 Review the selected vendors An open and frank discussion regarding the selected vendors for the capital tooling and for the production processing should be part of any full project validation review. In many instances these vendors may hold one or more critical components and their ability to both meet quality plans, and to meet capacity requirements may be crucial to the product line and to the company. Don’t let a vendor who is at capacity in one industry become the weak link in the supply of components for this project, even if they have the cheapest price, or offer the best terms. If the processes are to be done in-house for production, make sure your production equipment is up to the program and ensure the production group has the experience and level of staffing necessary to handle the anticipated program. Get these vendor issues out in the open and discuss them BEFORE giving them the orders and suffering through the consequences. Do your homework!
9.3.3 Assign implementation leaders and reporting protocol Since production implementation requires efforts from most every functional group or team within the organization, a leader or group of leaders should be identified and tasked with organization and control of the implementation process. In addition, some formal reporting protocol, both from the functional teams to the leaders and vice versa should be determined and agreed among the various functional groups represented. This is just good project management housekeeping policy.
9.3.4 Determine the implementation status meeting frequency Before calling for adjournment, the assembled group should determine and set the time, place, and date for the next meeting, as well as what an appropriate meeting frequency should be. On most production implementations for plastic parts and products, there is a huge lead time for tooling, molds, and so on, at the beginning of the implementation process. Then as process trials begin and part samples begin to be available for qualification and marketing samples, and so on, there is a flurry of activity. As such, many times we will see status meetings held monthly at the beginning of the implementation project which will then shift to weekly meetings as the samples start to arrive and debugging begins. Additionally the group can determine and define the reporting frequency and responsibility. Keeping all stakeholders up-to-date on a regular basis will help to ensure that everyone can see the project dynamics and will have the information they need to understand when and how their contribution is required. Good communications leads to well-run projects—enough said!
9.4 Preparation for transitioning into production With the review complete and with agreement by all parties that the project has a green light to transition into production, the various functional teams must prepare for their respective tasks. Each functional team will need to allocate resources, staff, and
Project review and verification—risk management
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funding for their portion of the project. Every member of every team will need to be in synch and be ready to support the project well.
Resources for further study S. Levy, J.H. DuBois, Plastics Product Design Engineering Handbook, second ed., Chapman & Hall, New York, 1984. S.E.M. Selke, J.D. Culter, R.J. Hernandez, Plastics Packaging—Properties, Processing, Applications, and Regulations, second ed., Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 2004. J. Rotheiser, Joining of Plastics—Handbook for Designers and Engineers, third ed., Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 2009. G.L. Beall, Rotational Molding—Design, Materials, Tooling, and Processing, first ed., Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 1998. E.R. Larson, Thermoplastic Material Selection—A Practical Guide, first ed., Elsevier, Oxford, 2015. R.A. Malloy, Plastic Part Design for Injection Molding: An Introduction, second ed., Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 2010. P.A. Tres, Designing Plastic Parts for Assembly, seventh ed., Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 2014.
Web links of note Great Design information from DuPont can be found here: http://www.dupont.com/content/dam/dupont/products-and-services/plastics-polymers-and-resins/thermoplastics/documents/General%20Design%20Principles/General%20Design%20 Principles%20Mod%201.pdf. Sabic provides many tools for designers here (you may need to register): http://www.sabic-ip.com/webtools/toolsHomePage.faces. The UL Prospector site is a valuable tool for any designer reviewing materials for any application (you will need to register): https://plastics.ulprospector.com/. Solvay provides a great design guide for using their Udel polysulfone materials: http://www.solvay.com/en/binaries/Udel-PSU-Design-Guide_EN-227550.pdf. Bayer has a nice design guide for RIM systems: http://reactioninjectionmolding.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/RIM-PartMoldDesignGuide.pdf. Covestro offers several design related guides, including part and mold design, snap fit design, and joining techniques for plastics: http://www.plastics.covestro.com/Library/Technology-brochures.aspx.
9
What is product development really about—it’s about creating the next best widget, right? Well, that is at least a romantic’s view. In reality, it is creating the next product or service that can generate the revenue to see the company through the next few years without putting the company in any further risk. If you think about everything we have discussed thus far in this book, I mean really give it some thought; it is really all about creating opportunity while limiting risk. There it is, said out in the open, this is not a creative lifestyle at all, it’s an ultra-conservative lifestyle. Wow, my balloon is now fully deflated, here I thought of myself as a starving artist type; well at least the starving part was close to realistic. Full review and thorough verification of the design before sending the first purchase order out for any capital tooling is only natural. Spend a week or two doing the due diligence before several hundreds of thousands of dollars or more is committed. Remember, once you step off that 30th floor balcony and begin the earthbound trip it is extremely hard to turn back. The following few topics are a mere listing of procedural steps encountered on most development projects. Use these as a potential reminder list so that, as they say, no stone is left unturned.
9.1 Gather the verification team As with our design reviews during conceptual development and detailed development, we need to identify the stakeholders at this stage of the program and make sure that each is represented well for the verification review discussions and consensus. Remember this is the final review prior to committing valuable company resources and funds for the project.
9.1.1 Design and engineering team Members of the design and engineering team need to be available to bring the history of the trade-off decisions that were made as a part of the design process. In any validation/verification discussion there are always questions about “why” a certain feature or structural element was used and “why wasn’t” this and such feature or material used or selected. The design and engineering team needs to be able to address such questions to ensure that every decision was and has been thoroughly vetted in the proposed final design.
Designing Successful Products with Plastics. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-44501-6.00009-X Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
246
Designing Successful Products with Plastics
9.1.2 Management team Management team will be the recipient of the results from implementation of the proposed final design into a product. They will be the heroes if the product is successful but will also need to accept responsibility if the product fails. They have already authorized the funding and resources to get the project though development; now they will be asked to authorize potentially much larger sums for the capital required to prepare, to build, and launch the product. Management should be the most interested group in the room and should be asking the toughest questions.
9.1.3 Marketing team Like management team, the marketing team will be accepting the responsibility to generate sales for the new product and will, like management, suffer should the product fail. Hence, marketing should have a keen interest in ensuring the product can perform as needed and can be manufactured at the price point necessary to compete in the marketplace.
9.1.4 Quality assurance team Quality Assurance members should be prepared to support the design team with information regarding their quality plan for qualification and for production implementation. These plans, coupled with the actual design, when assessed against the functional specification should provide management with the full story of how the proposed design will satisfy the market “need” and do so without undue risk to the organization.
9.1.5 Other potential stakeholders In addition to the highlighted stakeholders, others may be considered for inclusion in the verification review group. These can include: legal counsel, operations, manufacturing, a potentially critical material supplier or subcontract vendor, strategic sourcing, and others within the organization that might have valuable input or who could be impacted, either positively or negatively, by the implementation of the design.
9.2 Verification of the design The verification review team, comprising the members as described earlier, will be the responsible group for final approval of the design prior to implementation; they will put the puzzle together, so to speak, for the final move to commercialization of the product. In a perfect world, the verification team will require the design team to prepare a presentation outlining the proposed design, the budget, the QA plans, the functional specification, and all other relevant information. The presentation should be circulated to everyone in the group prior to the review meeting, allowing everyone
Project review and verification—risk management
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Figure 9.1 The verification team reviews the information gathered thus far in the project and then set out to solve the puzzle and create the optimum implementation plan. Source: Photo from iStock/.
on the verification team to become familiar, with the information and prepare for the review meeting adequately. Each member will need to come to the review meeting with their particular puzzle piece ready to mix and match with every other team members piece, attempting to find the optimum implementation plan (Fig. 9.1).
9.2.1 Review the design against the written functional specification The functional specification is the primary reference document against which the design will be verified. The proposed design should be reviewed and tested against each attribute or functional requirement within the specification. Some groups use a grading system wherein the proposed design is scored on a 1–10 basis against each functional requirement. For example, a score of 1 might represent the lowest condition, such as “does not meet the requirement at all” a score of 10 might represent “exceeds the requirement” and a score of 5 might be “meets the minimum necessary for the requirement,” and so on. The proposed design should be tested against every attribute or requirement within the written specification, do not skip a single requirement. Any testing results and observations compiled during the prototype testing or analysis should be available to be reviewed by the verification review team.
248
Designing Successful Products with Plastics
9.2.2 Review the design against the conceptual and final design review notes Notes from both the conceptual design review and the final detailed design review will often highlight features and functions of concern to those review groups. It is wise to go through those and ensure that whatever concerns were discussed in those reviews were indeed addressed and do not still pose any concern. The design team should be prepared to highlight any changes implemented as a result of the discussions from both the conceptual and the detailed design review sessions.
9.2.3 Review the design against the budget and costing targets Unlike the previous design review, the group should now have detailed cost estimates for both the capital investment required to implement the project and the per-unit costing once in a production context. Given this fairly precise financial information, management can determine the potential margins based on the proposed price structure from marketing. Any surprises in per-unit costing or in capital funds required will certainly be topics for review and discussion by the group. Design and engineering should be prepared to support decisions or features that increase cost or capital requirements over or above the preliminary budgets earlier in the project. Conversely, design and engineering should be prepared to show the group any proposed additional features or capital additions which might bring value to the program either at present or in the near future. Sometimes these proposed additional features or capital improvements come in the form of statements such as “once in production and once sales are meeting expectations, we can foresee increasing capacity and lowering per unit costs by implementing a new piece of equipment and process which will require a capital expenditure in the neighborhood of …” or similar. Management will often be pleased to see staged implementation where the capital investments can be gated according to results in the market. For many capital requirements this is not possible, we must build the mold or tooling before we can mold or process the part. However, we can sometimes plan the staged implementation; for example, build a single cavity mold in a mold base designed for two cavities, or perhaps even four, thereby limiting the upfront capital requirements but allow room for future capacity increase and cost reduction.
9.2.4 Review FMEA results for the design During project verification it is prudent to review the failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) results with the group. This is as much about proving that the risks have truly been reviewed and to the greatest extent possible reduced, as it is to refresh the groups awareness that failures do still happen and that we must be prepared for them. Quality assurance members will want to illustrate any procedures or system checks developed to be implemented as a direct result of any FMEA attribute or condition. The design team will want to illustrate any design changes or remedial actions implemented to correct any attribute or condition from the FMEA. All of this should build confidence in the project and provide the due diligence comfort needed by the group to verify and approve the project.
Project review and verification—risk management
249
9.2.5 Review any intellectual property analysis or opinion on the design Any potential infringement issues should be resolved prior to this verification review meeting, however, they should be discussed in group; especially highlighting areas where there is a need to be careful with respect to some other intellectual property. This is as much to educate the design and engineering staff as it is to illustrate to marketing what not to highlight in their promotional materials and advertising. Any potential licensing deals to assist with any infringement issues should be reviewed and discussed. The group should be advised whether the presence of any of these agreements should be public knowledge, or should be kept company confidential. Any proprietary information that will not be part of any patent application should be identified and the group should be clear that the information considered proprietary is not to be used or disclosed, in any form, for any reason. This proprietary information may indeed not be technical information at all, rather it may be the market rollout plans, or the market research results, or other nontechnical, nonpatentable information which could be of great benefit to a rival or competitive organization. In addition, any patent or trademark applications which have been made or are in process should be discussed so that everyone in the group understands the importance of each. Marketing should be promoting any product on which a patent application has been filed as a “patent pending” product. Likewise, all trademarks should be identified as such on all promotional or advertising copy.
9.3 Agreement to move to production implementation planning Once all pertinent data and issues have been reviewed, the group must come to a consensus to proceed to production implementation. If the group cannot do this, then the issues preventing the agreement need to be identified and the responsible parties need to be identified and tasked with resolving the issues or finding the requisite information needed to gain full verification and agreement to approve and move forward. Once agreement and approval to proceed is achieved, the group begins the next phase of work preparing for production. Getting our ducks in a row, or structuring the functional groups for effective transition to implementation is the goal.
9.3.1 Review production estimates and timeline Now that the project review is complete, the group should review the preliminary plans for said implementation, including the timeline estimates and overall implementation schedule. While representatives from most functional groups are still together in the review session, with all of the project details are fresh in their minds, it is an excellent time to discuss how to arrange the implementation schedule for maximum efficiency and effectiveness. This is the time to identify the critical milestones in the timeline which will drive the schedule and provide the decision points for critical marketing roll-out campaigns, and so on.
250
Designing Successful Products with Plastics
9.3.2 Review the selected vendors An open and frank discussion regarding the selected vendors for the capital tooling and for the production processing should be part of any full project validation review. In many instances these vendors may hold one or more critical components and their ability to both meet quality plans, and to meet capacity requirements may be crucial to the product line and to the company. Don’t let a vendor who is at capacity in one industry become the weak link in the supply of components for this project, even if they have the cheapest price, or offer the best terms. If the processes are to be done in-house for production, make sure your production equipment is up to the program and ensure the production group has the experience and level of staffing necessary to handle the anticipated program. Get these vendor issues out in the open and discuss them BEFORE giving them the orders and suffering through the consequences. Do your homework!
9.3.3 Assign implementation leaders and reporting protocol Since production implementation requires efforts from most every functional group or team within the organization, a leader or group of leaders should be identified and tasked with organization and control of the implementation process. In addition, some formal reporting protocol, both from the functional teams to the leaders and vice versa should be determined and agreed among the various functional groups represented. This is just good project management housekeeping policy.
9.3.4 Determine the implementation status meeting frequency Before calling for adjournment, the assembled group should determine and set the time, place, and date for the next meeting, as well as what an appropriate meeting frequency should be. On most production implementations for plastic parts and products, there is a huge lead time for tooling, molds, and so on, at the beginning of the implementation process. Then as process trials begin and part samples begin to be available for qualification and marketing samples, and so on, there is a flurry of activity. As such, many times we will see status meetings held monthly at the beginning of the implementation project which will then shift to weekly meetings as the samples start to arrive and debugging begins. Additionally the group can determine and define the reporting frequency and responsibility. Keeping all stakeholders up-to-date on a regular basis will help to ensure that everyone can see the project dynamics and will have the information they need to understand when and how their contribution is required. Good communications leads to well-run projects—enough said!
9.4 Preparation for transitioning into production With the review complete and with agreement by all parties that the project has a green light to transition into production, the various functional teams must prepare for their respective tasks. Each functional team will need to allocate resources, staff, and
Project review and verification—risk management
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funding for their portion of the project. Every member of every team will need to be in synch and be ready to support the project well.
Resources for further study S. Levy, J.H. DuBois, Plastics Product Design Engineering Handbook, second ed., Chapman & Hall, New York, 1984. S.E.M. Selke, J.D. Culter, R.J. Hernandez, Plastics Packaging—Properties, Processing, Applications, and Regulations, second ed., Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 2004. J. Rotheiser, Joining of Plastics—Handbook for Designers and Engineers, third ed., Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 2009. G.L. Beall, Rotational Molding—Design, Materials, Tooling, and Processing, first ed., Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 1998. E.R. Larson, Thermoplastic Material Selection—A Practical Guide, first ed., Elsevier, Oxford, 2015. R.A. Malloy, Plastic Part Design for Injection Molding: An Introduction, second ed., Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 2010. P.A. Tres, Designing Plastic Parts for Assembly, seventh ed., Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich, 2014.
Web links of note Great Design information from DuPont can be found here: http://www.dupont.com/content/dam/dupont/products-and-services/plastics-polymers-and-resins/thermoplastics/documents/General%20Design%20Principles/General%20Design%20 Principles%20Mod%201.pdf. Sabic provides many tools for designers here (you may need to register): http://www.sabic-ip.com/webtools/toolsHomePage.faces. The UL Prospector site is a valuable tool for any designer reviewing materials for any application (you will need to register): https://plastics.ulprospector.com/. Solvay provides a great design guide for using their Udel polysulfone materials: http://www.solvay.com/en/binaries/Udel-PSU-Design-Guide_EN-227550.pdf. Bayer has a nice design guide for RIM systems: http://reactioninjectionmolding.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/RIM-PartMoldDesignGuide.pdf. Covestro offers several design related guides, including part and mold design, snap fit design, and joining techniques for plastics: http://www.plastics.covestro.com/Library/Technology-brochures.aspx.