There can be up to thousands of component parts that make up some of the most common consumer goods we use everyday. For example, a dryer is made up of over 125 parts and cars can exceed over 30,000 individual parts. Engineers are responsible for finding and selecting these parts as they are designing a good. There are several methods to doing so. DIY involves redrawing the part made by supplier manufacturers, which can be inaccurate and time consuming. Requesting data or downloading on-demand design files from the manufacturer are also both methods, but can be limited in brand selection. Crowdsourcing design resources is an option, but can result in some inaccuracy due to lack of certification.
The best method is downloading from a component search engine. This process is simplified by simply requiring a key word to be entered and there will be hundreds of on-demand product configurations as a result, saving lots of time and money in the search process.
Infographic by: 3dfindit