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Design for Assembly in Manufacturing Engineering Technology Program: Experience and Success

Abstract

This paper discusses various aspects and models of how Boothroyd Dewhurst’s Design-For- Assembly (DFA) methodology can be integrated into Manufacturing Engineering Technology (MET) curricula. The DFA methodology involves a team that includes all the concurrent engineering disciplines and the stakeholders in the success of the product design phase. Manufacturing engineers usually play a vital role in the conceptual design phase. In order to educate the next generation of manufacturing engineers, we introduced and integrated the DFA methodology into our MET curricula. A detailed description of this model, including advantages and disadvantages, future directions and recommendations, are included.

Keywords: design for assembly, active learning, product design

Introduction

In recent years, there is a constantly growing need for manufacturing engineers possessing both design and manufacturing knowledge [2,3]. Shortages of design expertise and manufacturing experience often result in a low level of assemblability and manufacturability of product design [6,7]. Unfortunately, best manufacturing practices and design expertise are hard to disseminate to designers. To effectively disseminate and reuse this valuable knowledge, design and manufacturing departments need quantitative feedback mechanisms such as Design for Assembly methodology. Inevitably, our MET students need to learn how to generate quantitative feedback from manufacturing engineers to design engineers in the early design phase. A designer usually spends 25-30% of design time searching previous product design and its related manufacturing information [6]. The assemblability of product designs could be drastically improved by using a good DFA method and tool. As the design team conceptualizes alternative solutions, it should give serious consideration to the ease of product assembly or subassembly. In order to teach our MET students to communicate with design engineers effectively and efficiently, Boothroyd Dewhurst’s DFA methodology was introduced to accelerate ideas and exchange and generate alternative solutions. By using the DFA method, the students learned how to: (1) collect basic assembly information, (2) estimate part handling and insertion time, (3) calculate assembly efficiency, (4) identify assembly difficulties, and (5) generate alternative solutions. This paper proposes a structured problem-solving approach called DMAIC to develop a DFA learning model. The goals of this model are to:

1. Provide the students a clearly defined procedure for evaluating and improving product assembly efficiency, 2. Offer an active learning environment and motivate the students to practice their knowledge,

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Chang, G., & Peterson, W. (2010, June), Design For Assembly In Manufacturing Engineering Technology Program: Experience And Success Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16982