Direct Modeling affects many roles in product development. And the machinist shouldn’t be overlooked. Here’s an excerpt from a post on just that topic.

Deal with it. Are there any other words that cause so much muttering disdain? There are times in product development when you just have to buckle down and find a way around the problem. Yes, your manager admits, it’s probably a waste of your talents. No, your manager says, we can’t return it back to sender.

Such is the case, unfortunately, with design geometry and the machinist. Oftentimes, 3D models arrive in the machine shop in rough shape. There are misaligned edges, missing faces, unsealed solids and whatnot. But furthermore, machinists often need to create other representations of the design before they can do their work.
To design dies and molds, design geometry in some cases need to be tweaked to release. In other cases, design geometry must be transformed to represent its pre-machined shape.

Now, let’s be frank. All that time machinists sink into fixing and preparing geometry is a non-value add. Honestly. It’s simple a barrier that lies between the machinist and their final step: cutting metal. As a result, there’s one thing you can do with regards to this step: minimize it.

You can find the rest of the post over at the Siemens PLM Community site.