The Company

Frisella Design, originally IYRIS LLC, was founded in 2002 to provide design and fabrication services for industrial automation clients in the New England area.

The principals bring over 40 years of combined product, machine design and manufacturing experience to Frisella Design clients.

Phil Frisella, the principal, has 30 years of product and machine design experience. Starting out at Stone & Webster Engineering in Boston as an instrumentation designer, he moved on to the aerospace industry where he worked under veteran avionics mechanical engineers and was introduced to the precision and absolute attention to design detail required in that industry. Later he spent numerous years developing and designing electro-mechanical products and machinery for fortune 500 firms in the New England area.

He also worked for Fosella Associates of Boston, one of the top Industrial design firms in the country.

The strength of our small group, is the broad spectrum of experience in numerous industries and the ability to apply concepts and ideas created in one industry to challenges in another. We  have sucessfully completed projects in the following industries: automotive, electronics, semiconductor, thermal processing, medical equipmnent, food processing, commercial janitorial and robotics.

Our approach to delivering on every technical  project  consists of 3 primary thrusts:

1. Taking on only those projects that are a good match for our technical background.

Our strengths are commercial and industrial product design involving electronics, precision motion control, mechanisms, plastic and sheet-metal enclosures. Plastic process expertise includes injection, thermo-forming and rotational molding.

The 3D CAD world has had a tendency to spawn a growing number of what we call  "cad jockeys" , who have lots of experience with cad systems but little real world design experience.

Our design expertise started on the drafting board, where we learned the art of design - 3D Cad is an incredible tool that enhances the visual communication of the idea to both the designer and end user, but a CAD does not replace mechanical design knowledge.

 2.Standard Project Administration

We believe that the accomplishment of a technical result is as much administrative as it is technical.

Without standard, well documented policy that is understood, accepted
and applied throughout the group, the efforts of the best engineers and technicians are greatly jeopardized.

In fact technical staff are actually at some risk in terms of their professional reputation, in companies or projects that are poorly administered.

With this in mind we have adopted a  structured approach to all engineering and administrative activities.

Standard Project Outline

We use a standard, three design review format:

1. Initial Design Review
2. Detail Design Review
3. Final Design Review

At the start of each project, deliverables are defined for each of the design reviews listed above.

Initial design, also sometimes called "conceptual design review" usually requires presenting three or more different conceptual approaches to the problem, one of which is finally chosen before signing off the "Initial design review".

Reviewing a complete documentation package of fabrication drawings, assembly drawings and then getting sign-offs from engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and finance  make up the final two design reviews.

Rapid prototype models, where applicable, are suggested during the initial design review.

"First part", manufactured in actual production environment should always be done and approved prior to final design review sign-off.