In the injection mold processing industry, the position of mold designer, with its high salary, excellent working environment, and promising career prospects, has become a coveted career path for many practitioners. This career aspiration is understandable, but how to enter the field of design is a question that everyone with this ambition must face. So, what professional skills do fitters in medical mold factories need to possess in order to advance steadily on the path of design? Let's delve into this topic together.

Fitters are a type of worker closely connected to design and one of the fastest paths to learning design. They not only need to be able to interpret drawings and precisely machine parts according to drawing requirements but also be responsible for assembling all mold parts and quickly locating and repairing problems during mold testing. However, fitters often have an incomplete understanding of design.

Many fitters believe that design is simply drawing with software, and with their years of fitter experience, they think they can easily transition to designers by learning software. However, when they truly embark on the path of learning design, they find that things are far from as simple as they imagined. Even senior fitters, in the first two years of self-studying design, often can only barely use software to draw simple mold diagrams, and struggle with slightly more challenging products.

The reason lies in the fact that CAD, UG, and other drawing software are just design tools, and the real key lies in the designer themselves. For the same product, different designers will provide different structures and process plans, with varying results. Therefore, the core of design lies in design concepts and thinking, not the software itself. Software is just a tool for realizing design ideas.

Of course, as a foundation, software does require some time to become proficient and master, in order to use it with ease. Although fitters have come into contact with many molds in their daily work and are familiar with mold structures and part drawings, this understanding is often limited to local aspects of the mold. For example, how many fitters can clearly explain or deeply consider the selection criteria for screws in molds, why they are selected this way, and why they are placed this way?

Differences in work content lead to differences in thinking between fitters and designers. Fitters consider more about the rationality of processing and assembly, while designers need to consider the overall process, structure, cost, standards, and other global aspects of the mold. Therefore, the biggest challenge for fitters to learn design is to break through their thinking limitations and lack of structural knowledge. Once this limitation is overcome, the transition to becoming a designer is just around the corner and natural.

In summary, whether they are fitters, machinists, or other practitioners, to embark on the path of design, they must go through multiple stages such as learning software, mastering mechanical drawing, understanding mold structures, analyzing processes, and familiarizing themselves with design standards. Only by comprehensively improving these professional skills can they go further and more steadily on the path of design.