The cheapest time to reduce the cost of a part is before anyone makes it.
Once a design is finalized, tooling is cut, and production is running, most of the cost is locked in. Chapman Smith gets involved earlier — reviewing how a part will be made, what it should be made from, and which process delivers the requirement at the lowest cost.
We're not an engineering firm. We're the people who know what a part costs to produce across a range of processes and suppliers, and who can tell you when a small change to a design removes a significant amount of that cost.
You're buying a component today and the price won't come down. Often the constraint isn't the supplier — it's the design, the specification, or the process it was originally quoted against.
We review the part against alternatives: a different material, a different forming process, a casting instead of a weldment, an extrusion instead of a machined part. Sometimes the answer is a better source. Sometimes it's a different way of making the same thing.
A part works on paper but is expensive or difficult to produce — tolerances tighter than the function requires, features that add a secondary operation, a geometry that rules out the cheapest process.
We review the design against how it would actually be made and identify the changes that reduce cost without affecting how the part performs.
You have an idea, a sketch, or a prototype, and no path to production. We help determine what it should be made from, which process suits the volume, what tooling is required, and who can produce it — then coordinate the suppliers to get it made.
The same part can often be produced several ways, and the right answer depends on volume, tolerance, finish, and lead time as much as on the part itself.
A bracket might be a laser cut and formed weldment at low volume, a progressive stamping at high volume, or a casting if the geometry justifies the tooling. A housing might be machined, cast, or assembled from extrusions. Each has a different tooling cost, a different piece price, and a different break-even.
We evaluate those tradeoffs against your actual volume and requirements, so the process is chosen deliberately rather than inherited from whoever quoted it first. We can help you understand the material options and the process implications for your specific application.
When a part requires tooling — a die, a mold, a fixture, an extrusion die — we source it alongside the production supply rather than as a separate purchase.
That means the tooling is designed for the supplier who will run it, the tooling cost is evaluated against the piece price over the expected volume, and you have one relationship covering both rather than a tool built by one party and run by another.
Earlier is better, but useful at any stage:
Before the design is fixed, when material and process are still open and the cost impact of a decision is largest.
After the design is settled but before tooling is committed, when process selection and supplier choice still determine the piece price.
When something you already buy is too expensive and you want to know whether the design, the material, or the source is the reason.
A drawing, a sketch, a sample, or a current purchase price. We'll tell you how we'd make it, what it should cost, and what would have to change to get there.
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