Design for manufacture.

Introduction
Generally, Design for manufacture is a component of Design for X, where DFX
means:
1. Design for Manufacture
2. Design for Assembly
3. Design for Environment
4. Design for Safety
5. Design for Reliability
6. Design for Maintenance
7. Design for Aesthetic features
8. Design for economy
9. Design for Ergonomics
1. Design for Manufacture
DFM refers to the general engineering art of designing products in such a way that
they are easy to manufacture. The basic idea exists in almost all engineering disciplines, but
of course the details differ wildly depending on the manufacturing technology. Traditionally,
DFM method evaluates the feasibility and cost of manufacturing of the product at the
operation level.
2. Design for assembly
Design for Assembly (DFA) is a process by which products are designed with ease of
assembly in mind. If a product contains fewer parts it will take less time to assemble, thereby
reducing assembly costs. In addition, if the parts are provided with features which make it
easier to grasp, move, orient and insert them, this will also reduce assembly time and
assembly costs
3. Design for environment. (DFE) is a product design approach for reducing the
impact of the products on the environment.
4. Design for safety. The goals of the design process are usually manifold. The
resulting system must not only satisfy its functional requirements but also have to fulfill
certain non-functional requirements. One of such requirements is safety. A safe product is one
that does not cause injury or property loss and does not pollute the environment. There are
three aspects to design for safety.
a. Make the safe product.
b. If it is not possible to make the product inherently safe, then design the proactive
devices like guards, automatic cutoff switches, pressure relief valves, to mitigate the hazard.
c. If step b cannot remove all the hazards, then warn the user of the product with
appropriate warnings like labels, flashing and loud sounds.
5. Design for reliability
Reliability engineering is the discipline of ensuring that a system will be reliable when
operated in a specified manner.
Reliability engineering is performed throughout the entire life cycle of a system,
including development, test, production and operation.
6. Design for maintenance (Serviceability)
Serviceability is concerned with the ease with which maintenance can be performed on a
product. Products often have parts that are to be replaced at periodic intervals. It is important

to anticipate the required service operations during the design of the product.
Provision
must be made for disassembly and assembly. For example dont make an automobile design
that requires the removal of the panel to access the oil filter. Also, remember that service
usually will be carried out in the field where special tools and fixtures used in factory
assembly are not available. The best way to improve the serviceability is to reduce the need
for service by improving reliability of the components and systems.
7. Design for aesthetic features
Designers have many aesthetic qualities to improve the marketability of manufactured
products: smoothness, shininess/reflectivity, texture, pattern, curviness, color, simplicity,
usability, velocity, symmetry, naturalness, and modernism.
8. Design for economy
It is important to note that cost is also a dimension of the quality. Economically
successful products are profitable; that is, they generate more cumulative inflows than the
cumulative outflows.The main objective of all manufacturers is to make profit. So the
producer should give a cost effective design. Based on the cost and other consideration, the
designer should select material or manufacturing processes.
9. Design for ergonomics
Ergonomics (or human factors) is the application of scientific information concerning
humans to the design of objects, systems and environment for human use. (definition adopted
by the International Ergonomics Association in 2007). Ergonomics is the study of the
interaction of a person with a machine. Information derived from Ergonomists contributes to
the design and evaluation of tasks, jobs, products, environments and systems in order to make
them compatible with the needs, abilities and limitations of people

The developement of the production systems

Until 1950

Manual
operating

Universal (all purpose)

machine-tools
Quality-depends of the oprator
experience
Mechanical measuremets

1980th

Automation using Hardware

components

High batch production and

mass production
( 1960th)

Mechanical transfer machine

Electrical measurements

Automation using Software

components

CNC machining centers

Automatic measurements systems
Flexible automation

(1970th)

Industrial robots
Mechatronics
Small batch production
with a large diversity of producs
Computer data processing
of the product types

1990

th

Automatic control of the production

Flexibily and systematization
Self-adjusting measurements
Inteligence automation

Network systems. Inteligent machines

Inteligence measuremets systems
Sensors integration.
Ierarchical systems

FMC, FMS, CIM

Automatic systems;
Arificial Inteligence;
Open systems