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Tolerance Stack-Up and Cost
Tolerances do not just cost money individually — they stack. A stack-up analysis, done early, often reveals hidden over-tolerancing.
May 30, 2026 5 min read
Tolerances do not just cost money individually — they stack. A dimension built from five parts, each plus/minus 0.1 mm, can vary plus/minus 0.5 mm overall. That drives assembly failures and rework.
How to control it
- Use a single datum chain and avoid accumulating
- Run worst-case vs statistical stack analysis
- Tighten only the links that matter
- Design with adjustability where you can
A stack-up analysis, done early, often shows that one non-critical part is forcing the whole assembly to be over-toleranced — and over-costed.
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