Design for manufacturing and
assembly (DFMA)
Differences between design for manufacturing (DFM) and design for
assembly (DFA)
Design for Manufacturing (DFM) is a design method to reduce the complexity
of manufacturing operations and the overall cost of production including the cost
of raw materials.
Design for Assembly (DFA) is a design method to facilitate or reduce the
assembly operations of parts or components of a product.
The difference is that one focuses on parts (DFM) and the other on part assembly
(DFA).
Why using design for manufacturing or design assembly?
It is usually accepted (demonstrated?) that 70 to 80% of production costs are
determined by design decisions.
Hence the importance of using design for manufacturing or design for assembly.
Design for manufacturing and assembly (DFMA), the right balance
Design for Manufacturing and Design for Assembly can be contradictory. At the
extreme, the DFA approach can naturally lead to having only one part: the
assembly cost becomes zero.
On the other hand, it can lead to an extremely complicated part to produce, with
a high cost.
It is therefore appropriate to use a combined Design for Manufacturing and
Assembly (DFMA) approach, which has become the standard today.
Design for excellence (DFX)
Main levers to reduce manufacturing costs through DFMA
Reduce the number of parts
This is probably the most important lever. It directly reduces the assembly cost,
and a significant number of other indirect costs: administrative and logistical
costs (ordering, transport, storage, etc.), test costs (for each part) and reliability
costs (more parts = more risk of failure)
Use standard parts
Standard parts are cheaper, more available, and often more reliable than custom
parts.
Adopt a modular design
The use of modules allows several benefits depending on the case:
• Reduce the overall number of components or parts. This is the case if
a product exists in several variants (each of which may differ by a
module) or if several products may use the same module. This reduces
the associated indirect costs (administrative and logistical)
• Reduce redesign or test costs by using existing modules rather than
new parts
• Take advantage of production scale effects for modules common to
several parts
On the other hand, modularity is limited by the potential increase in assembly
costs with more connections.
Design multifunctional parts
A multifunctional part reduces the total number of parts because instead of using
two parts for two functions, only one part is needed. For example, a heat
dissipator can be used as a separation as well.
Design error-proof parts
It is probably the most famous lever of DFMA, sometimes called Poka-Yoke. It
consists in designing parts that cannot be assembled in the wrong way or
assembled on other products.
Design parts to facilitate assembly
Some parts can be designed to facilitate assembly or testing. For example, in
addition to their "product" function, a part can provide an assembly guide, or be
reflective to facilitate inspection.
Design to facilitate manufacturing
This is the counterpart of the previous lever, focused on the production of one
part rather than the assembly of two parts.
This applies particularly to finishing operations such as machining and painting,
which must be limited. We can also mention complex molding parts.
grooves
- Consider degree of difficulty in cutting grooves
- Use as big a radius as possible in corners (sharp edges are difficult to cut
and keep uniform)
Holes
- Keep L/D ratio less than 3:1 whenever possible
- Do not specify holes that ‘turn corners’
Limit tolerance constraints
It is also necessary to reduce binding tolerances or in general any "over-
specification" that is not a customer requirement because they will increase
production costs by imposing more robust processes, more sophisticated
equipment or more extensive quality control operations.
Define the right fastening means
In general, separate, and complicated fasteners should be limited and simple
automatic fasteners preferred.
Separate fasteners increase the cost due to additional handling and indirect
management costs. Moreover, they are often sourcing of quality defects.
It is necessary to design fasteners that have the lowest cost, for example:
• prefer automatic fasteners such as clips
• prefer rivets to screws
• prefer self-tapping screws
• avoid screws with tapped holes or that are too long or too short
Consider the least expensive fastening method that meets the requirements
Reduce or facilitate handling
The positioning, orientation and fixing of parts must be limited, for example by
using symmetrical parts to avoid orientation.
The parts must be designed to be easily and safely which means, the operator:
not too small, not too large, not too heavy, not with sharp edges or tips.
Reduce assembly directions
All parts should be assembled in one direction only and if possible, from top to
bottom to take advantage of the effects of gravity.
Designing for Manufacturability (DFM) of Machined Parts
Anderson’s Law. Never design a part you can buy out of a catalog unless you
can clearly justify the choice (i.e. to save weight (if that’s an important design
goal), to reduce size for improved packaging, to use an alternate material, etc.).
Always design parts around nominal raw material stock sizes.
Avoid designing mirror image (right or left hand) parts.
Use larger feature tolerances.
Use fewer and/or coarser surface finish specifications.
Use fewer dimension datums. Each reference datum requires edge finding to
locate a zero. Using fewer datums decreases setup time, reduces error (tolerance)
stack up and lowers the chances for mistakes.
Use nominal part dimensions. If making the part manually, it is much easier to
read nominal dimensions off a part drawing (i.e. 2.000″ or 1.125″) than arbitrary
dimension (i.e. 2.019″ or 1.131″).
Use weaker materials. Weaker materials generally have higher machinability,
so use them whenever possible. In addition, weaker materials typically have a
lower cost, which can be substantial.
Use thru-bolted holes.
Specify cone-bottomed holes. Cone-bottomed holes are produced by drills; flat
bottom holes are produced with end-mills. Drills are much faster for producing
holes and should be used exclusively unless you have a very good reason to do
otherwise.
Make the part smaller. If there is no good justification otherwise, make the part
smaller; this reduces material cost, manufacturing cost and leaves more space for
other components in the assembly.
Design for minimum raw-stock removal. It takes less time to remove less
material. Better designs start with material that is near net shape and minimize
the amount of machining operations.
Avoid small cutting tools. Larger tools are stronger and remove material faster
without vibrating or breaking. Time is money when it comes to manufacturing,
so try to avoid designs requiring small tools.
Design for favorable tool stiffness. Since the strength and stiffness of cutting
tools limit productivity, maximize stiffness by minimizing each tool’s required
length (L) relative to its diameter (D). L:D ratios should be under 3:1 for milling
and 8:1 for drilling whenever possible; smaller is always better.
Design around standard cutter sizes. If you can design features to use standard
cutter sizes, you can often make parts on manual machines that otherwise would
require CNCs. CNCs cost more per hour to operate, so for prototyping, parts
that can be produced on manual machines are typically cheaper.
Avoid unnecessary fillets.
Show Cartesian coordinates on detail drawings.
Reduce the total number of parts.
Good designs are elegant in their simplicity.
Design efficiency
- A quantitative measure of time and cost required to assemble a product
- A rating which can be used to judge the effectiveness of a current design
(a benchmark for future improvements)
- Design efficiency is the result measure as calculated by the Boothroyd-
Dewhurst process
i. Symmetry of parts (repeatability for orientation)
ii. Size and thickness
iii. Handling time
iv. Insertion time
Handling Time
- How many hands required?
- Any grasping assistance needed?
- Effect of part symmetry on assembly
- Is part easy to align/position?
Insertion time
- Is part self-securing?
- Need to hold down?
- What fastening process?
- Easy to align/position?
Handling difficulty
- Size
- Thickness
- Weight
- Fragility
- Flexibility
- Slipperiness
- Stickiness
Necessity for using:
- Both hands
- Optical magnification
- Mechanical assistance
Design for Manufacturing and Assembly methods
There are several detailed methods and tools for DFMA. We focus here on the
fundamental principles of these methods:
• Collaborative work between design and manufacturing teams. Many
stakeholders must participate in this process: marketing or sales
(definition of the initial specifications), R&D or engineering,
purchasing, manufacturing methods, quality and even logistics teams
(logistical constraints) or customer service teams
• An upstream work: it starts at the marketing phase, which can therefore
be several months or even years before the arrival in production
• Practice feedback on products already in production. It is not only a
question of production teams being involved in R&D, but also of R&D
teams coming into production to see for themselves
Assignment 1:
Please make complete research about any industrial product you can select it,
to perform a comprehensive its life cycle from design concept to marketing.
your research must focus on using CAD/CAM/CIM analysis and DFMA
facilities and methods.
