How We Work With You
At Southwest Composite Works, we take a systematic, hands-on approach to turn your ideas into reality, whether starting from a concept, a sketch, or an existing part. Our design and engineering process blends technical precision with creativity, ensuring every project moves efficiently from idea to execution.
Each new project typically follows four key development stages, guiding your product from concept to completion with clarity and control.
Project Feasibility
Our team thoroughly reviews the project scope, which includes examining any initial drawings, prototypes, molds, or existing products. We discuss your specific requirements, specifications, and timeline, and conduct a Risk Assessment to determine how our services can best support the project. We also provide a preliminary ROM (Rough Order of Magnitude) pricing estimate.
Reverse Engineering Legacy Products into CAD
Reverse engineering creates 3D CAD data from existing products for reproduction, design improvements, and retooling. Using 3D scanning or precise measurements, we convert physical products into digital files, enabling analysis, modification, and reproduction in modern design environments like SOLIDWORKS. This offers valuable insights that can drive cost reductions, spark innovation, and promote sustainability.
Composite Tooling Design
Using the finalized CAD—whether provided by you, drafted by our team, or reverse-engineered—we design molds tailored to your project's manufacturing requirements, including tolerances, volume, costs, and lead time. Plugs and molds are crafted to produce high-quality, repeatable parts, customized for the composite processes selected for your project. Having high-quality composite tooling molds is crucial to successful production; managing this process in-house allows for enhanced control and communication throughout.
Component Design
Design for Manufacturing (DFM) focuses on designing components to simplify production, reduce costs, and improve quality. The goal is to optimize performance while lowering complexity, enhancing functionality, and ensuring reliability. DFM includes designing parts for efficient assembly, standardizing materials and components, reducing part count, and minimizing manufacturing operations, all to make your product easier and more cost-effective to produce. This stage goes hand in hand with Composite Tooling Design.
We have over 100 years of combined experience in tooling design and development.
We are solution-oriented, collaborating with you to design, solve, and manufacture high-quality OEM and production-level products.
AMERICAN MADE
INNOVATIVE
COST EFFECTIVE
