DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURING

AND ASSEMBLY
Abid Sandila
AGENDA:

• Design for Manufacturing

• Design for Manufacturing & Assembly (DFMA)

• DFMA Steps

• DFMA key objectives & examples

 Quality

Function DFMA Cost

Time to
Market
Design for manufacturability (also sometimes known as design for manufacturing
or DFM) is the general engineering art of designing products in such a way that
they are easy to manufacture at the lowest possible cost.

DFM describes the process of designing or engineering a product in order to

facilitate the manufacturing process in order to reduce its manufacturing costs.
DFM activity is related to optimization and adaptation of product design in order
to reduce cost, time, and resources during manufacturing. DFM will allow potential
problems to be fixed in the design phase which is the least expensive place to
address them. Other factors may affect the manufacturability such as the type of
raw material, the form of the raw material, dimensional tolerances, and secondary
processing such as finishing.

Depending on various types of manufacturing processes there are set guidelines

for DFM practices. These DFM guidelines help to precisely define various
tolerances, rules and common manufacturing checks related to DFM.

While DFM is applicable to the design process, a similar concept called DFSS
(Design for Six Sigma) is also practiced in many organizations.
Can you find number of letter F’s in this sentence?

“Finished files are the result of

years of scientific study combined
with the experience of years.”
Can you find number of letter F’s in this sentence?

“Finished files are the result of

years of scientific study combined
with the experience of years.”
INTRODUCTION TO
DESIGN FOR (COST EFFECTIVE) ASSEMBLY AND MANUFACTURING

•The words “Cost Effective” have been highlighted in red and put in
parentheses. This is there to emphasize that we only do this activity to make
the overall “cost” of the assembly and part manufacturing lower. This includes
costs associated with difficult assembly (thus taking more time/labor), quality
defect costs (due to omitted, wrong or assembled wrong errors, etc.) and other
costs associated with poor designs.

•The order of “Assembly” and “Manufacturing” was switched from the

traditional order (the one that the standard “DFMA” acronym came from) in
order to highlight that we actually want to do DFA first and then do DFM.
Question: What do we do first…..Design for Manufacturing or Design for Assembly?

Answer: We do DFA first, then DFM. That way you’re not wasting your time
optimizing the manufacturing processes on component parts that you might
end up eliminating from the assembly.
About 75%-80% of quality issue during mass production are due to design

Design for Manufacturing Aims to:

1. Reduce material, overhead and labor cost
2. Shorten the product development cycle
3. Focus on standards to reduce cost
QUALITY ISSUES
Manufacturin
g
25%

Design
75%
DFMA Steps:
1. Conceptualization Affordable/attractive, serve the
purpose its designed/used for

2. Analysis
3. Redesign
4. Conclusion
DFMA Steps:
1. Conceptualization
2. AnalysisComponents, Processes, Combined Components, Main Assembly
and or subassembly
-Is the component moving?

3. Redesign-Is the component required to be removed for maintenance?

-Can it be made from different material?

4. Conclusion
DFMA Steps:
1. Conceptualization
2. Analysis
3. Redesign
From these questions, suspect components
and processes should be identified and
redesigned.

4. Conclusion
DFMA Steps:
1. Conceptualization
2. Analysis
3. Redesign
4. Conclusion Reports, Participants,
evaluations, tests, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C31RPvtFw6k
Key Principles in the DFMA Process:
1. Minimize part count

2. Standardize parts and materials complexity

3. Create modular assemblies

4. Design for efficient joining

5. Minimize re-orientation of parts during assembly and/or machining

6. Simplify and reduce the number of manufacturing operations

7. Specify ‘acceptable’ surface finishes for functionality
 Key Principles in the DFM Process:
1. Minimize part count
‘..If more than 1/3 of the components in a product are
fasteners, the assembly logic should be questioned.’

 24 Parts
 2 Parts
 8 different parts
 2 Manufacturing processes
 multiple mfg. & assembly
 one assembly step
processes necessary
2. Standardize parts and materials complexity
3. Create modular assemblies
3. Create modular assemblies (contd.)
•(standardization of sub-systems….)
•All components can be removed as single pieces, which assists
with servicing and troubleshooting.

•Can make the modules themselves expensive (and certainly

more expensive than the one component that actually broke)
but this is the trend in industry. Makes for faster repairs, less
trouble-shooting time and quicker service events in general.
4. Design for efficient joining
5. Minimize re-orientation of parts during assembly
and/or machining
6. Simplify and reduce the number of manufacturing
operations
•Lean Manufacturing
•Henry Ford was one of the first people to develop the ideas behind Lean
Manufacturing. He used the idea of "continuous flow" on the assembly line for his
Model T automobile, where he kept production standards extremely tight, so
each stage of the process fitted together with each other stage, perfectly. This
resulted in little waste.

Pessimist: Half Empty

Optimist: Half Full

Lean Thinker: Can I reduce the

glass half the size?
•Toyota Production System (TPS), which uses Just In Time (JIT)

•JIT usually identifies seven prominent types of waste to be eliminated:

• Waste from Overproduction ∙ Waste of waiting/idle time
• Transportation Waste ∙ Inventory Waste
• Processing Waste ∙ Waste of Motion
7. Specify ‘acceptable’ surface finishes for functionality
abid.sandila@dicefoundation.org