What are jigs and fixtures?

Hi Srk4you,

In any manufacturing process there is a need to use jigs and fixtures. Think about an assembly process, where we need to join two parts with certain requirements (e,g, on tolerance after joining, or avoiding damage). We could decide to join the two parts manually but we may observe some difficulties in doing so: too much force may be required, we may not be able to do it accurately enough or we may damage one of the parts in the process. In such cases, a designer will design a jig to support the assembly process. In this example, the two parts by be inserted in the jig and the jig than joins the parts.

Other examples are e.g. in manufacturing molded parts. The actual mold that gives the part its shape can also be considered to be a jig.

Jigs play an important role in the quality of a product. A jig, if well designed, can make sure that that e.g. a joining operation becomes repeatable. Every part manufactured with such a jig will than have high quality (repeatable dimensions well within the specification). Also the opposite is true: if the jig is of poor quality, the product may display a lot of variation in its critical parameters and therefor display poor quality.

Uppyn.