Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc.

Design For Assembly Software

Case Study

Product Overhead Projector

Company 3M

Source "DFMA: Learning to Design for

Manufacture and Assembly"
Mechanical Engineering
May 1992

Improvements/Reductions
Product Development Cycle 45%

Summary
Redesign of overhead projector.

BDI Case Study # EQP5

 Automakers and other manufacturers using design for manufacture
and assembly are relishing its fruits-shorter production times and improvements in
product quality-while saving money.
Joseph Constance
Wyckoff, N.J.
D
esign for manufacture
and assembly (DFMA)-a
management and software
tool based on the premise
that about 70 percent of all
product development, assembly, and
production costs are built in during
the design stage-has been saving
some companies production and la-
bor costs for the last decade. The
tool enables designers to consider a
product’s material selection, design,
manufacturability, and assembly up
front. It also increases productivity
and quality. Approximately 400 com-
panies and institutions use it
worldwide.
At Ford Motor Co. (Dearborn,
Mich.), for example, executives
saved $1.2 billion worldwide using
design for assembly (DFA) in l987
alone. And General Motors Corp.
(Detroit) reportedly has reduced
manufacturing costs 30 to 60 per-
cent on certain projects since it
started to use DFMA in late l989.
GM has implemented a large pro-
gram using DFMA and concurrent
70 / MAY 1992 / MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
engineering.
While many automakers have
embraced DFMA and benefited
most from this manufacturing ap-
proach, it is also available to other
industries. DFMA has enabled vari-
ous companies to design, manufac-
ture, and assemble products more
efficiently and competitively. Mak-
ers of aircraft, industrial and elec-
trical machinery, pumps, and com-
pressors are among the growing
number of manufacturers adopting
the method.
However, DFMA has caused some
disruptions. Under this system,
engineers and designers arc forced
to work in teams rather than indi-
vidually, and this occasionally cre-
ates friction. Additionally, their
work is more closely scrutinized, as
DFMA often reveals that their ini-
tial ideas may not be the most
effective.
DFMA, developed by Boothroyd
Dewhurst Inc. (Wakefield, R.I.),
calls for the development of de-
tailed designs for each of a prod-
uct’s individual parts, based on the
combination of various capabilities
and limitations inherent in the ma-
terials and processes used. That is,
manufacturers must identify the
most appropriate assembly system
for a new product design in con-
junction with a structural analysis of
the design for its overall efficiency
and suitability for the chosen assem-
bly method.
DFMA runs on IBM PCs and on
Apple computers. The minimum cost
of licensing either DFM or DFA soft-
ware, for a site with 250 employees,
is $12,500.
The DFMA software is a method-
ology and data base system that al-
lows a design engineer or cross-
functional manufacturing team to
analyze and rate product designs for
ease of assembly and structural effi-
ciency, as well as to predict assembly
and manufacturing costs. The pro-
gram allows for the selection of the
most feasible manufacturing process
at the concept stage, when product
configurations are a rough sketch or
outline and before CAD/CAM activi-
ty has begun.
Putting DFMA to Use
The Portable Compressor division
of the Construction and Mining
Group was one of the first divisions
of Ingersoll-Rand Co. (Mocksville,
N.C.) to use the DFMA tool, accord-
ing to Don Gerhardt, manager of
engineering and development. In
the past, he explained, products
were designed and preproduction
units were built. Then 6 to 12
 Instrument panel Screw, Control panel r Screw, nut

Relay _ r Control panel

Valve, 2-way
Decal-l
I. Lamp Rivet

Cable, choke- ,

Door, control panel

d Rivet

Combined control and instrument panel

Fewer parts. At Ingersoll-Rand, DFMA software was used on a control and instrument panel assembly. The number of parts was reduced 33 percent; the
number of fasteners used fell 38 percent; assembly operations decreased 33 percent; and assembly time improved 28 percent.

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING / MAY 1992 / 71

months were spent obtaining input
from employees on how to optimize
a prototype. But that all changed in
1987 when DFMA was adopted, said
Gerhardt.
“We have been able to reduce our
new product development time from
2 years to 12 months while maintain-
ing high-quality standards,” he said.
“DFMA has been an important tool
in uniting the project teams from
various departments into a cohesive
group.”
Ingersoll-Rand began seeing the
benefits of DFMA as soon as it began
its training period, said Gerhardt. In
a new radiator and oil cooler design
used as a test, the number of parts
was reduced 64 percent from 80 to
29; the number of fasteners was cut
47 percent from 38 to 20; assembly
operations decreased from 159 to 40,
a reduction of 75 percent, and as-
sembly time decreased from 18.5
minutes to 6.5 minutes, a 65 percent
improvement.
In another instance, the DFMA
software was used on a control and
instrument panel assembly. Again,
there were significant savings. The
72 / MAY 1992 / MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
number of parts was reduced 33 per-
cent; the number of fasteners used
fell 38 percent; assembly operations
decreased 33 percent; and assembly
time improved 28 percent.
To convince engineers of the value
of the DFMA approach, Ingersoll-
Rand analyzed components not
made with DFMA and showed com-
pany designers firsthand how the
technique could improve designs.
Gerhardt said engineers were more
open to the concept once they were
given concrete examples of improved
designs. While it was good for the
company as a whole to show its de-
signers how they could improve their
work, management had to soothe the
egos of engineers who found that
they were not producing the opti-
mum designs. The key here, Ger-
hardt said, was to show how DFMA
was not going to be used to criticize
the engineers’ work, but rather to
help them improve it.
Teaming Up
As soon as the training period
was over, Ingersoll-Rand combined
engineering and manufacturing ex-
perts into teams so that they would
communicate with each other read-
ily during implementation of
DFMA. The most important ele-
ment in successfully applying DF-
MA and concurrent engineering in-
volves team building and proper
team selection, said Gerhardt. A
team leader must have the neces-
sary technical skills, a sense of ur-
gency and persistence, and the abil-
ity to deal well with people.
Ingersoll-Rand team leaders have
come from engineering, marketing,
and purchasing groups.
The company has learned that
early supplier involvement provides
several benefits. The overall cost of
a product can often be reduced by
working with a supplier and incor-
porating simple changes in a com-
ponent, said Gerhardt. Ingersoll-
Rand has invited suppliers to
partake in DFMA training sessions
as the company relies on them to
take more of the design responsibil-
ity in areas in which they have the
expertise.
Ingersoll-Rand’s Portable Com-
pressor division is currently using
 DFMA concepts on several products:
air compressors, portable generators,
and portable construction lighting
equipment. “The DFMA concept is
becoming second nature to users,”
Gerhardt said. “Initial designs are
coming out with the best ratings
even before running them on the
software.”
At Precor USA Inc., a maker of
aerobic exercise equipment based in
Bothell. Wash.. DFMA--initiated last
year-is used to improve product
quality and productivity and to en-
able the firm to estimate competi-
tors’ overhead, labor, and material
costs as well as the type of produc-
tion process they use.
George Henry, vice president of
engineering at Precor explained that
the company began its business in
the early 1980s when there was not
much competition in aerobic exercise
equipment. But competition in-
creased in the mid-1980s after medi-
cal experts revealed that exercise af-
fecting the cardiovascular system
could help fight heart disease and
improve general health.
“We had to find a way to keep
our lead in the business, improve
our time to market and get better
products to market,” Henry said.
“We also needed a way to bench-
mark competing products. DFMA
enables us to design our products
better and more quickly using
lower-cost components. It gives us
quantitative assembly times up
front.”
Precor’s DFMA team includes
production, procurement, sales,
marketing. and financial personnel
as well as designers and manufactur-
ing engineers. Henry said that in-
volving employees outside the man-
ufacturing and design area is
important because if, for example,
purchasing managers learn that a
specific piece of tooling will be re-
quired for a new product, they can
order it well ahead of production
time.
Currently, DFMA is being applied
to about a dozen products under
development at Precor. For one
product, DFMA has enabled Precor
to reduce the number of fastener
types by 54 percent and total fabri-
cation and assembly time by 36 per-
cent. For another product, the
number of fastener types was re-
duced 75 percent and total fabrica-
tion and assembly time was cut 27
percent.
Improving Design
With DFMA, Fibercraft//DESCon
Inc. (Rochester, Mich.) was able to Less is more. Storage Technology Corp. used DFMA to reduce the number of par ts in this tape car-
eliminate about 120 parts and 109 tridge elevator from 95 (top) to 36 (bottom).

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING / MAY 1992 / 73

fasteners in the instrument panel
for the Oldsmobile line. Linda
Shimkus, an instrument panel engi-
neer at Fibercraft/DESCon, said that
while redesigning the instrument
panel and related systems, her
“team went through the DFA pro-
cess four times. The first time
through we determined that the in-
strument panel was not a stand-
alone component but an integrated
system. The second time we went
through the DFA process, we saw it
as a complete system that crossed
different technological areas.”
These included electrical engineer-
ing and design, as well as heating,
ventilating, and air conditioning en-
gineering and design. “The third
and fourth times through DFA, the
instrument panel was a totally inte-
grated highly functional system,”
she added.
Now there is less ergonomic
stress on assembly plant opera-
tors-crawling in and out of cars
during assembly was reduced 60
percent, and the number of times
workers have to lie on their backs
was halved. Also, the number of job
stations at the assembly plant was
reduced from 36 to 18.
Gerald Morrison, DFMA manag-
er at Fibercraft/DESCon said the
key to implementing the system
was the creation of an atmosphere
that makes employees aware of
why the technique is being used
and what its purpose is. “The ‘why’
was survival. In this business you
have to fight for your existence,”
Morrison said. Once the proper at-
mosphere is created, the DFMA
group must perform as a team, he
said. “It is necessary to lose one’s
identity and become part of the
team and have a vision that is
friendly to DFMA.”
At the Codex division of Motorola
Inc. Information Systems Group
(Mansfield, Mass.), DFMA is used to
optimize the design of the electro-
mechanical enclosures on its line of
modems and networking systems.
T.B. McMichen, principal engineer
of new products manufacturing, said
DFMA enabled the company to im-
prove assembly efficiency to 30 per-
cent-previously it was at 15.9 per-
cent-and decrease assembly time to
160 seconds from 1720 seconds;
part/operation count fell to 31 from
271; and the number of fasteners de-
creased to 12 from 171.
Meanwhile, Minnesota Mining
and Manufacturing Co. (3M) in St.
Paul uses DFMA to move new prod-
ucts to market in half the time it
took before it implemented the sys-
tem in 1989. Tom Moore, manufac-
74 / MAY 1992 I MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
turing engineering manager in the
Hard Goods and Electric Support
division, said that some areas of the
company have been able to reduce
the time it takes to commercialize a
product by 40 to 50 percent. Part
counts have been reduced as well,
he said. The Hard Goods group has
used DFMA to make overhead pro-
jectors and laser imagers used in
medical imaging.
Enhancing a product by reducing
the number of parts offers several
advantages, including fewer process-
ing steps, adjustments, mating points,
tolerance stack-up problems, opera-
tor frustrations, material control
problems, and assembly fixtures, ac-
cording to Moore.
Typically, designers do not have a
way to quickly evaluate the costs as-
sociated with alternative designs.
Current cost-estimating approaches
require detailed engineering draw-
ings, creating excessive product costs
and too many parts that end up be-
ing quality and reliability problems,
said Moore.
3M assigns areas of expertise to
members of the design team who
have a specialty in a particular area,
such as electronics or design. These
specialists work concurrently with
product designers to minimize manu-
facturing costs and optimize the
product.
In 1988, consultants recommended
that Storage Technology Corp.
(Louisville, Colo.), a manufacturer
of tape and disk peripheral comput-
er equipment, implement a quality-
of-design program, said Arch Hig-
gins, d i r e c t o r o f d e s i g n f o r
manufacturing at StorageTek. After
visiting the Ford facility to see the
technique in action, about 1400 Stor-
ageTek employees were trained in
the process during 1989 and 1990.
Also trained were suppliers, since
they can suggest ways to improve a
design so that the optimum part can
be made.
Higgins said that by using DFMA,
the company has streamlined compo-
nents from about 90 parts down to
36 parts. StorageTek is now imple-
menting DFMA on all of its more
than 40 products.
“By going through a couple of it-
erations on every product line
that’s being developed, we’re seeing
a reduction in total assembly parts
and assembly time,” said Paul
Casey, a design applications engi-
neer at StorageTek. “From the last-
generation product line to the
current-generation line, it’s very
typical to see things such as part
count and number of operations cut
in half.”
At NCR Corp.‘s engineering and
manufacturing facility in San Diego,
DFMA was used on the fourth gener-
ation of its 9800 on-line transaction
processing and real-time computing
system. These products are used by
banks in their automated teller
machines.
Joe Fleming, senior principal in-
dustrial engineer at NCR, said the
DFMA approach resulted in a 90 per-
cent reduction in continuing engi-
neering efforts after the first test unit
was built; a 66 percent reduction in
continuing engineering efforts after
product release; and no assembly er-
rors occurring on the first 10 units
built.
Also, 99 percent of all wire assem-
bly labels were removed, resulting in
fewer labeling errors and lower part
cost. The number of operation as-
sembly sheets was reduced 20 per-
cent. Moreover, improved CAD
drawings led to simpler written in-
structions on the products.
Fleming said NCR has given the
DFMA technique its own name,
“DFX,” as a way to make clear that
efforts should be made to improve
not only a product’s manufacturabili-
ty, but also its testability, repro-
ducibility, marketability, and main-
tainability. This NCR division is
currently applying DFX to its model
3600 large on-line transaction pro-
cessing system.
Failures Exist
Not all of those who are intro-
duced to DFMA find that it can help
them, however. After analyzing
some of their pen products with
DFMA, engineers and designers at
Bic Corp. (Milford, Conn.) found
that, in many cases, the designs could
not be simplified. So while DFMA is
generally successful. there are in-
stances when it cannot help improve
the design efficiency or provide a
way for a company to gain addition-
al cost savings.
Henry Leo, product designer at
Bic, said the company’s pens contain
many simple individual components
that cannot be combined into one
unit. Moreover, the parts are not
complex shapes or assemblies that
could be streamlined or made less
complex by DFMA.
DFMA developers Geoffrey
Boothroyd and Peter Dewhurst said
that the next step in the develop-
ment of DFMA is to expand its focus
to include the assembly of large com-
ponents; the assembly and installa-
tion of electrical connections and
wire harnesses; and the design of
products that are easier to maintain
and recycle. n