Have you been focusing all you efforts into a solution that isn't the root cause of the issue? It can be hard at times to see that a fault or issue is stemming from a larger issue further up the process, and this can lead to spending considerable budgets solving and issue that may disappear entirely if an issue further up was corrected first.
To highlight this we will use a specific example that we have encountered in the plastic manufacturing industry, in particular thermoforming of parts.
The project as determined by the client was to create adjustable CNC router tooling jigs to hold the production parts for final cutting for use in assembly. The issue as it was described was a large degree of variability in dimensions of the thermoformed parts coming from the thermoforming process. The solution as requested was to make the jig for the CNC machine adjustable so it could allow for large tolerances in dimensions of the part.
Creating a CNC jig could ultimately provide a solution for placing the parts on the machine for cutting but would still leave many issues.
• The need to custom programs for different sized parts
• Setup times for the custom jig
• Large tolerances on parts creating assembly issues when constructing final product
In cases like this it is important to ask the question "Why are the parts varying", rather than "how do we make the variations work".
In this particular case, the issues stemmed from temperature control of the moulds and water in the thermoforming process. Large variations in these conditions throughout the day would result in high degrees in size variation of parts.
The first approach to solving this would be to focus the money on the temperature control of the thermoforming process. Additions of a new water cooling/heating system to maintain constant temperatures through the process would likely solve the tolerance issues.
If the tolerance issues are elevated through water and temperature control of the thermoforming process we have eliminated the need for a custom tooling jig.