CASE 02 · DESIGN + IP · STRUCTURAL
The customer had a load requirement but no design. I engineered the structure, ran the FEA, and filed the patent in their name. They now own a defensible product, sourced at factory cost.
The problem: a requirement without a design
Many buyers arrive with a function and a constraint — "it has to carry this load, fit this envelope, and be affordable at volume" — but not a finished part. Handing that to a factory usually produces one of two outcomes: a design optimized for the factory's convenience, or a quotation with an assumption buried inside it.
Neither is what the customer needed. They needed to own the design.
What I did
- Engineered the structure to the load case. Section, material and geometry were chosen against how the part would actually be loaded — not scaled from a similar-looking part.
- Ran the FEA before committing to metal. Stress and deflection were checked on the model, hotspots reinforced and excess material removed. This is the same analysis-before-production discipline that applies to any structural part.
- Designed for the chosen process. The geometry was set so it could actually be produced — draft, wall thickness and tooling access considered from the start, per the DFM checklist.
- Filed the patent in the customer's name. The IP belongs to the buyer, not to me and not to a factory. That is the point: a defensible product the customer controls.
The result
The customer received a manufacturable, stress-verified design and a patent filed in their own name — produced at factory cost rather than purchased as a finished product from a supplier who would own the design. They now have something competitors cannot simply copy.
Where I fit in
I take a load requirement through design, FEA and DFM to a drawing a factory can build — and make sure the intellectual property ends up in your name, not a supplier's. Send the requirement; I'll tell you what it takes.
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