Product Design and Process Selection -- Manufacturing Designing new products and getting them to market quickly is the challenge facing manufacturers in industries as diverse as computer chips. Customers of computer chip manufacturers, such as computer companies, need ever more powerful semiconductors for their evolving product lines. As shown in Exhibit, three major functions are involved in these activities: marketing, product development, man-ing.

Continue Marketing suggest ideas for new products and provides specifications for existing product lines. Product development moves the technical concept for the product to its final design. Manufacturing selects and configures the processes by which the product is to be manufactured. The product development activity links customer needs and expectations to the activities required to manufacture the prod.

The Product Design Process New product development entails a complex set of activities that cuts across most functions in a business. Exhibit lays out the phases of a typical development project. In the first two phases, concept development and product planning, information about market opportunities, technical possibilities, and production requirements must be combined to define the architecture of the new product.

Typical Phases of Product Design Development Concept Development Product Planning Product/Process Engineering Pilot Production/Ramp-Up

The Product Design Process This includes its conceptual design, target market, desired level of performance, investment requirements, and financial impact. Before a new product development program is approved, firms also attempt to prove out the concept through small-scale testing. This test may involve the construction of models and discussions with potential customers.

Continue Once approved, a new product project moves into detailed engineering. The primary activities in this phase are the design and construction of working prototypes and the development of tools and equipment to be used in commercial production. At the heart of detailed product engineering is the design-build-test cycle.

Continue Then, the firm typically moves development into a pilot manufacturing phase, during which the individual components, built and tested on production equipment, are assembled and tested as a system in the factory. At this stage all tooling and equipment should be in place and all parts suppliers should be ready for volume production.

Continue The final phase of development is ramp- up. In ramp-up, production starts at a relatively low volume; as the organization develops confidence in its (and its suppliers) abilities to execute production consistently and marketings abilities to sell the product, the volume increases. The project is usually not done in isolation. It interacts with other projects and must fit the operating organization to be effective.

Continue To speed the product development process, many companies have begun using concurrent engineering (CE) approaches to organizing the project. Rather than a simple serial approach in which we proceed from one phase to another, CE emphasizes cross-functional integration and concurrent development of a product and its associated processes.

Concurrent Engineering(Continued) Teams provide the primary integration mechanism in CE programs There are three types of teams –Program Management Team –Technical Team –Design-Build Teams Time savings of CE programs are created by performing activities in parallel

Continue The benefits of the CE approach come mainly from the reduced time to complete a project. Concurrency involves the parallel completion of project phases – for example, simultaneously developing market concepts, product design, manufacturing processes, and product support structure. The time saving that results from performing activities in parallel rather than in series can be significant.

Concurrent Engineering Defined Concurrent engineering can be defined as the simultaneous development of project design functions, with open and interactive communication existing among all team members for the purposes of reducing time to market, decreasing cost, and improving quality and reliability.

Designing for the Customer Before we detail the how and why of designing and producing products, it is useful to reflect on the issue of product design from the users standpoint. Designing for aesthetics and for the user is generally termed industrial design. Industrial design is probably the area most abused by manufacturers. Many products have too many technological features – far more than necessary.

5 Designing for the Customer Industrial Design Aesthetics Ergonomics

Quality Function Deployment One approach to getting the voice of the customer into the design specification of a product is quality function deployment The QFD process begins with studying and listening to customers to determine the characteristics of a superior product. Through market research, the consumers product needs and preferences are defined and broken down into categories called customer requirements.

Continue One example is an auto manufacturer that would like to improve the design of a car door. Through customer survey and interviews, it determines that two important customer requirements in a car door are that it stays open on a hill and is easy to close from the outside. After the customer requirements are defined, they are weighted based on their relative importance to customer.

Continue Next the consumer is asked to compare and rate the companys products with the products of competitors. This process helps the company determine the product characteristics that are important to the consumer and to evaluate its product in relation to others. The end result is a better understanding and focus on product characteristics that require improvement.

Continue Customer requirement information forms the basis for a matrix called the house of quality. By building a house-of-quality matrix, the cross-functional QFD team can use customer feedback to make engineering, marketing, and design decisions. The matrix helps the team to translate customer requirements into concrete operating or jointly agreed on and detailed in the house.

Designing for the Customer Quality Function Deployment Value Analysis/ Value Engineering Ideal Customer Product House of Quality

Continue The first step in building the house of quality is to develop a list of customer requirements for the product. These requirements should be ranked in order of importance. Customers are then asked to compare the companys product to the competition. Next a set of technical characteristics of the product is developed. These technical characteristics should relate directly to customer requirements.

House of Quality 7

Value Analysis/Value Engineering The purpose of value analysis/value engineering (VA/VE) is to simplify products and processes. Its objective is to achieve equivalent or better performance at a lower cost while maintaining all functional requirements defined by customer. VA/VE does this by identifying and eliminating unnecessary cost.

Designing for the Customer: Value Analysis/Value Engineering (VA/VE) Achieve equivalent or better performance at a lower cost while maintaining all functional requirements defined by the customer –Does the item have any design features that are not necessary? –Can two or more parts be combined into one? –How can we cut down the weight? –Are there nonstandard parts that can be eliminated?

Designing Products for Manufacture and assembly The word design has many different meanings. To some it means the aesthetic design of a product. In another sense, design can mean establishing the basic parameters of a system. Another -- is the detailing of the materials, shapes, and tolerance of the individual parts of a product.

Continue It is an activity that starts with sketches of parts and assemblies and then progresses to the computer-aided design workstation, where assembly drawings and detailed part drawings are produced. These drawings are then passed to the manufacturing and assembly engineers, whose job it is to optimize the processes used to produce the final product.

Continue Traditionally, the attitude of designers has been We design it, you build it. This has now been termed the over-the-wall approach, where the designer is sitting on one side of the wall and throwing the design over the wall to the manufacturing engineers. Concurrent engineering: Lets work together simultaneously.

Design for Manufacturing and Assembly Greatest improvements related to DFMA arise from simplification of the product by reducing the number of separate parts: 1.During the operation of the product, does the part move relative to all other parts already assembled? 2.Must the part be of a different material or be isolated from other parts already assembled? 3.Must the part be separate from all other parts to allow the disassembly of the product for adjustment or maintenance?

Process Selection Process engineering refers to the tactical planning activities that regularly occur in manufacturing. Process selection, in contrast, refers to the strategic decision of selecting which kind of production processes to have in the plant. For example, if the volume is very low we might just have a worker sit at a table and produce a small batch of these assemblies. On the other hand, if the volume is very high, setting up an assembly line might be appropriate.

Types of Processes Processes are categorized based on how they are designed. We defined terms such as single- and multiple-stage, and make- to-stock and make-to-order processes. Another way to categorize processes is based on what they do. At the most basic level, the types of processes do the following things:

Continue Conversion processes include example such as changing iron ore into steel sheets. Fabrication processes include examples such as changing raw materials into some specific form (making sheet metal into a car fender). Assembly processes include examples such as assembling a fender to a car. Testing processes.

Process Flow Structures A process flow structure refers to how a factory organizes material flow using one or more of the process technologies. Identified four major process flow structures: Job shop. Production of small batches of a large number of different products, most of which require a different set or sequence of processing steps (airplane plant).

Continue Batch Shop. Such a structure is generally employed when a business has a relatively stable line of products, each of which is produced in periodic batches, either to customer order or for inventory (electronic devices). Assembly line. Production of discrete parts moving from workstation to workstation at a controlled rate, following the sequence needed to build the product (assembly appliances).

Continue Continuous flow. Conversion or further processing of undifferentiated materials such as petroleum, chemicals. As on assembly lines, production follows a predetermined sequence of steps, but the flow is continuous rather than discrete. Such structures are usually highly automated. The choice is a function of the volume requirements for each product.

Product – Process Matrix The relationship between process structures and volume requirements is often depicted on a product-process matrix. The way to interpret this matrix is that as volume increases and the product line (the horizontal dimension) narrows, specialized equipment and standardized material flows (the vertical dimension) become economically feasible.

Continue Because this evolution in process structure is frequently related to the products life cycle stage (introduction, growth, or maturity), it is very useful in linking marketing and manufacturing strategies.

IV. Continuous Flow III. Assembly Line II. Batch I. Job Shop Low Volume, One of a Kind Multiple Products, Low Volume Few Major Products, Higher Volume High Volume, High Standard- ization Commercial Printer French Restaurant Heavy Equipment Automobile Assembly Burger King Sugar Refinery Flexibility (High) Unit Cost (High) Flexibility (Low) Unit Cost (Low) Exhibit 5.10 These are the major stages of product and process life cycles

The Virtual Factory The term virtual factory refers to manufacturing activities carried out not in one central plant, but rather in multiple locations by suppliers and partner firms as part of a strategic alliance. The role of manufacturing for an auto producer, will shift from solely monitoring activities at one central plant to managing the integration of all steps in the process.

Break – Even Analysis The choice of specific equipment follows the selection of the general type of process structure. A standard approach to choosing among alternative processes or equipment is break-even analysis. A break-even chart visually presents alternative profits and losses due to the number of units produced or sold. The choice depends on anticipated demand.

Manufacturing Process Flow Design Manufacturing process flow design focuses on the specific processes that raw materials, parts, and subassemblies follow as they move through the plant. The most common production management tools used in planning the process flow are assembly drawings, assembly charts, and flow process charts. Each of these charts is a useful diagnostic tool and can be used to improve operations of the production.

Example: Process Flow Chart Material Received from Supplier Inspect Material for Defects Defects found? Return to Supplier for Credit Yes No, Continue…

Global Product Design and Manufacturing Globalization relates to a firms ability to develop and produce products for regions of the world different from its home country. The objective when a company goes global is to leverage its size and knowledge to produce additional sales in the new markets. A joint venture is an arrangement in which two companies form a third independent company to carry out business.

Measuring Product Development Performance Measures Freq. Of new products introduced Time to market introduction Number stated and number completed Actual versus plan Percentage of sales from new products Freq. Of new products introduced Time to market introduction Number stated and number completed Actual versus plan Percentage of sales from new products Time-to-market Productivity Quality Engineering hours per project Cost of materials and tooling per project Actual versus plan Engineering hours per project Cost of materials and tooling per project Actual versus plan Conformance-reliability in use Design-performance and customer satisfaction Yield-factory and field Conformance-reliability in use Design-performance and customer satisfaction Yield-factory and field Performance Dimension