Before you even begin to worry about how to incorporate fasteners into your CAD models, first you should be asking yourself: should I? Whether or not fasteners make sense to include in CAD will depend largely on your company and industry. A one-off automation machine may only include specialty fasteners that aren’t regularly stocked, while a serialized production machine where several hundred units will be made could include every nut and bolt. Adding all the hardware to an assembly can be a serious undertaking, even with the time saving methods we’ll discuss here, and an honest accounting of the potential benefits of a full resolution model needs to be balanced against the labor cost of doing so.
Including fasteners can help to: