Briggs & Stratton Engine

DFA/DFM Analysis/Re-design
Joshua Phonpadith
Austin Dowell
Dylan Prichard
Thomas Solorzano
Background
The first thing we had to decide on when approaching this project was deciding on what
we were going to optimize. Thomas had a couple of old farm engines he no longer used, so we
decided to use his old 1983 Briggs & Stratton two stroke engine. We met up on a weekend to
take the engine apart and document each part piece by piece. We took photos throughout to
explain our process during the final presentation and to number each part for analysis in both
DFA and DFM. In total, we were able to break the engine down to 91 parts, some of which were
subassemblies that could be bought by a supplier. After disassembling the engine, we carefully
modeled each part in the DFA and DFM software to simulate the cost to assemble the entire
engine, the time it would take to assemble, and the costs and times to make every part. We
then used recommendations by the software to reduce the total number of parts, the cost to
make certain parts, and the times it takes to make each part and assemble the engine.

Figure 1. The original fully assembled 1983 Briggs and Stratton engine.
Figure 2. The disassembled 1983 Briggs and Stratton engine.
 Figure 3. The parts list for the original engine.

Method
We decided to completely disassemble our specified engine down to the engine base.
The engine base is the main block that holds the pistons, oil, rotor, intake/exit valve, connecting
rod, and gears. The parts we took off until we reached the bare engine base were plenty to
work with for this project so we didn’t feel it was necessary to continue taking the engine base
apart. To start our analysis, we first determined what parts we would be getting rid of. There
were many pieces we found unnecessary to the overall design and decided to remove them.
Once we knew what parts were being removed, we decided what parts were going to be
changed to have a cheaper manufacturing process. This primarily included changing parts from
being sheet metal to injection mold which dramatically reduced the price of these parts. We
carefully modeled each part in the DFA software while also adding assembly operations in order
to simulate the cost and time it would take the assemble the entire engine. DFM was then used
to simulate changing the material and manufacturing processes for our parts. In the DFA
analysis, some of the parts had their actual cost included. Not all prices were able to be located
so the remaining cost of each part was estimated to the best of our knowledge. This along with
the time and assembly cost to put the engine gave us the total cost for our engine. For the parts
we decided to change, we took the DFM calculated prices and substituted them in for the same
parts that had an estimated price. Doing this gave us the most accurate pricing difference
between the original and redesigned engine.

Results
The original DFA analysis of the engine gave a process time of 1611.25 s, a process cost
of $21.65, an item cost of $214.88 and a total of $236.53. After modeling the original, the
software gave a lot of recommendations for parts that were possible to take out of the
assembly and redesign. We worked together as a group to decide to eliminate/redesign a total
of 47 parts to decrease production times and costs. The engine redesign DFA analysis gave a
process time of 988.70 s, a process cost of $13.51, an item cost of $137.09 and a total of
$150.60. This is a 39% reduction in process time, 38% reduction in process cost, and a 36%
reduction in total cost.
Figure 4. The original engine design analysis using the DFA software.
 Figure 5. The redesigned engine analysis using the DFA software.

For the DFM analysis, we decided to change three parts. These included the housing, gas
tank, and intake pipe section B. When considering the housing, there were other parts attached
to it that were not in the redesign. To account for this in the analysis, we added these parts to
the original manufacturing cost and compared the cost of all of them to the cost of the
redesigned housing. The original parts we redesigned had the following manufacturing
methods:

● Housing - Sheet Metal Drawing

● Clutch Wheel House - Sheet Metal Stamping
● Head Cover - Sheet Metal Drawing
● Gas Tank - Sheet Metal Drawing
● Intake Pipe Section B - Hot Forged

And the redesigned parts had the following manufacturing methods:

● Housing - Injection Molding

● Gas Tank - Injection Molding
● Intake Pipe Section B - Injection Molding

Injection molding was the cheapest and most reliable way to modify these parts. This new
manufacturing process greatly reduced the overall cost as seen in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Displays the cost of each part in the DFM Analysis.

Conclusion
In conclusion, we analyzed, disassembled, and redesigned a 1983 Briggs & Stratton
engine. We disassembled the engine piece by piece for a total of 91 parts (which includes one
subassembly that we would purchase from a supplier) and modeled each piece in the DFMA
software. After looking through the software redesign recommendations and discussing as a
group how to efficiently reduce the costs of the engine, we decided to take out a total of 47
parts and redesign 3 to make the engine smaller and cheaper to produce. In the end, we
reduced the assembly time by 39%, reduced the assembly cost by 38%, and reduced the total
cost of the engine by 36%.