Skills
The backlit wall above the workbench. Each tile is a discipline; the whiteboard below holds the methods I run programs with.
Wall-thickness discipline, draft, ribbing, bosses, snap-fits and living hinges designed around how the part will actually fill and cool.
Gate and parting-line strategy, cavity layout, shrink compensation, and reading T0 samples to decide steel-safe corrections.
Skeleton-driven top-down assemblies, mechanism motion, surfacing and production drawings on large platform models.
Configuration-driven part families, sheet metal, and quick concept modelling for prototype cycles.
Facilitating cross-functional failure-mode analysis and converting high-RPN items into concrete design or validation actions.
Designing to the process — mould, press, weld or fixture — before the drawing is released.
Part-count reduction, poka-yoke features and single-direction assembly to cut line time and error rates.
Worst-case and RSS stacks on mechanism chains and cosmetic gaps, tied to a defensible GD&T scheme.
Linkages, cams, sears, springs and detents — designed for feel as much as for function.
Function-cost mapping, teardown benchmarking and structured idea generation that survives validation.
8D, fishbone and 5-Why applied to field returns, with design corrections verified on rig before release.
SLA, FDM, CNC and soft tooling used deliberately — each build answers a specific engineering question.
Qualifying tool rooms and moulders, running sample dispositioning and closing capability gaps.
Controlled change through PLM with clear effectivity, impact assessment and traceable approvals.
Methods
Force structured idea generation when a design has plateaued.
Map functions to cost so you cut cost, not capability.
Generate concept combinations systematically instead of by habit.
Choose between concepts against a datum with weighted criteria.
Find failure modes before tooling, not after launch.
Fix the cause, not the symptom, and prove it.
Keep the user's hands and context in the loop through the whole program.