Answers
Grounded manufacturability answers for product designers, indexed so the next search finds them.
How do I choose the right manufacturing process for a part?
Decide in this order: volume first, since it decides if tooling cost is worth paying at all, then geometry, since it rules out anything that physically can't make your shape, then budget, since it decides whether you can absorb tooling cost before a sale. Skipping this order is the usual mistake.
What tolerance can a CNC shop or injection molder actually hit?
CNC standard tolerance, around plus or minus 0.13mm, is close to free. Precision at 0.05mm adds 15 to 25 percent. Injection molding runs on DIN 16742, roughly plus or minus 0.1 to 0.2mm baseline, with anything tighter than 0.05mm flagged high-risk before quoting.
What draft angle and rib thickness does a molded part need?
Plastic walls generally need 1 to 2 degrees of draft minimum to release from the mold, more with surface texture, roughly 1.5 degrees per 0.025mm of texture depth. Ribs should stay at 40 to 60 percent of the adjacent wall thickness, or the thicker rib cools slower and sinks the surface opposite it.