Lecture 7

DFA, DFM,
DFM, &
& DFMA
DFMA 11
DFA,

The contents of this lecture are the sole copyright of M. Ham & J. Jeswiet
They are intended for use only by students in MECH 424, Life Cycle Engineering,
Queens University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
Unlicensed use of the contents of this lecture outside MECH 424 is illegal.

The
Thetopic
topicfor
fortoday
todayis
is
DFA,
DFA,DFM
DFM&&DFMA
DFMA
DFA/DFM/DFMA is
supposed to:

From the BDI website

Boothroyd & Dewhurst Institute
website

What is DFA/DFM/DFMA
DFA how easy things go together
DFA: Design of components taking into account how they will be
assembled together to ensure that assembly costs are
minimized.

DFM how easy things can be made

DFM: Design of components taking into consideration the
processes that will be used to manufacture them to ensure that
manufacturing costs are minimized.

DFMA balance between ease of making & assembly

DFMA: It is obvious that these two goals are often incompatible
and hence compromises must be made.
Environmental factors are not directly taken into account,
improved quality = reduced waste, and thus does indirectly
impact the environment!

DFD how easy things take apart

Progression of the development of DFMA: how it developed

DFA

DFM

DFMA

DFE

DFD
DFA = design for assembly
DFM = design for manufacture
DFE = design for Environment
DFD = design for disassembly

DFS
DFSS

DFS = design for service

DFSS = design for six sigma
DFX = design for X

DFXs

Product Costs

Highest impact on reducing cost reducing parts

From the BDI website
Boothroyd & Dewhurst Institute website

Cost Reduction Opportunities

DFA
simplifying
&
reducing

DFM
DFMA

From the BDI website

Boothroyd & Dewhurst Institute website

Model T
Early DFA
Shipping crates for
floorboards
Paint colour
Assembly Line
Operating Door
Choke

Example
application
Exampleof
ofresults
resultsof
of DFMA
DFMAapplication:
application:
application
In 1989, Ingersoll-Rand not only cut product development time in half
but also reduced the number of parts needed.
Ingersoll-Rand cut product development time from two years to one.
The following shows the reduced number of parts:
Results of Ingersoll-Rand project with DFMA
Before

After

Compressor/
oil cooler parts

80

29

Number of
fasteners

38

20

Number of
assembly
operations

159

40

Assembly
time, min

18.5

6.5
From the BDI website
Boothroyd & Dewhurst Institute website

Ford vs. GM
(Boothrotd & Dewhurst, 1999)

Front Bumper of Taurus (after DFA)

10 parts

Front Bumper of Grand Prix

100 parts

41% productivity gap due to ease of

assembly
Fords parts fit together easier

In a survey of 89 industries who used DFMA

it was found that the following reductions were achieved, on
average
100%

From the BDI website

Boothroyd & Dewhurst Institute website

Boothroyd and Dewhurst look at this as follows:

From the BDI website

Boothroyd & Dewhurst Institute website

Why were these improvements suddenly possible and not before?

modern methods of analysis
traditional view: we design it, you build it, (still prevalent today)
changing attitudes (more teamwork)

Ways
Ways to
to Use
Use DFMA
DFMA
1. Concurrent Engineering
1.
2.
3.
4.

Reduce Manufacturing & Assembly Costs

Reduce Time to Market
Reduce Design Costs
Etc.

2. Benchmarking Competitors Products

3. Analyzing Supplier Costs
1. Most contracts have a clause to reduce costs
annually

Types
Typesof
ofAssembly
Assembly

Manual
Most flexible & Most expensive
Skill of workers effects assembly times

Hard Automation
Custom tooling only make one product

Soft Automation
Robots
More dexterity BUT dumb

DFA
DFAGuidelines
Guidelines
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Reduce number of parts

Reduce number of different parts - Standardize parts
Simplification of assembly
Reduction number of processes
Less fasteners especially screws & bolts
Reduce tangling
Orientation
1. Critical orientation obvious see & fit
2. Non-critical orientation fit in any direction
8. Ensure access & visibility
9. Easy part handling
10. Assemble from top
11. Reduce locating/alignment operations manual/time
consuming

Justification
Justification of
of Part
Part
The three criteria against which a part must be
examined, as it is added to the product assembly, are:
1. during operation of the product, does the part move relative to all
other parts already assembled?
Only gross motion should be considered; small motions can be
accommodated by other means such as integral elastic elements.
2. must the part be of a different material than or be isolated from all
other parts already assembled?
Only fundamental physical needs for material differences are
acceptable.
3. must the part be separate from all other parts already assembled?
The only reason to have it separate would be that assembly or
disassembly (for maintenance reasons ONLY) of other separate parts
would be impossible.

The best way to look at this is with an example.

Consider a motor drive assembly that is required to sense and
control its position on two guide rails, as shown schematically:

Proposeddesign
designof
ofaamotor
motordrive
driveassembly
assembly
Proposed

Application of the three criteria gives:

From the foregoing analysis it can be seen that:

if the motor and sensor subassemblies could be arranged to snap or
screw into the base and
if a plastic cover could be designed to snap on,
in theory, there would be only four parts needed instead of nineteen.

The foregoing was done without considering any practical limitations

Advantage in the Design Process:

The Designer and/or design team is now placed in a position of having to
justify the existence of the parts that did not satisfy the DFA criteria.
Justification comes from practical, technical or economic considerations.
For example: it could be argued that two screws are needed to secure the
the motor and one screw is needed to position the sensor because any
alternatives are impractical for a low volume operation such as this.
However the design of the screws could be improved by providing them
with pilot points to facilitate assembly.
Based upon the foregoing some design rules can already be established.

Some Design Rules - logical

A common theme throughout DFA,
DFA is the need to
reduce the number of fastening devices, with screws
being the main culprit
if screws are used, one standard size should be used
all screw heads should be the same;
a common screw driver can then be used
all screws should have pilot points to facilitate easier
assembly

The following change could easily be made:

the powder metal bushings are unnecessary because the part can
be machined from an alternative material with the right frictional
characteristics, such as Nylon
The following are difficult to justify:
separate stand-offs
end plate
cover
the six screws

We started with this.

Before going further it is necessary to have estimates of

assembly times
costs
Techniques are available to make these estimates but will not be dealt
with here.
Suffice it to say we can estimate the times and costs shown in the next
table.

Boothroyd and Dewhurst do one thing at this point that is particular

to their DFMA analysis.
They calculate the Manual Assembly Efficiency,
This is done with the equation: E m a N m i n

Ema

ta
tma

Where Nmin = the theoretical part minimum

ta = the theoretical, lowest assembly time.
this is an ideal minimum
tma = the estimated assembly time to complete assembly of
the actual product
It should be noted these criteria are applied without taking general
design considerations into account.

As an example:
the design efficiency for the motor drive is, E m a N m i n
where
Nmin = 4 parts,
tma = 160 sec,
ta = 3.5 sec
Then

ma

3 .5
4
1 6 0

and

Ema = 8.8%

ta
tma

It can be seen that those parts that didnt meet the criteria for the
minimum part count involved a total assembly time of 120.6 seconds
Table 1
no.
base
1
bushing
2
motor sub
1
motor screw
2
sensor sub
1
set screw
1
stand-off
2
end plate
1
end plate screw
2
plastic bus
1
thread leads
reorient
cover
1
cover screw
4

theoretical assembly assembly

part count time, sec cost (cents)
1
3.5
2.9
0
12.3
10.2
1
9.5
7.9
0
21
17.5
1
8.5
7.1
0
10.6
8.8
0
16
13.3
1
8.4
7
0
16.6
13.8
0
3.5
2.9
5
4.2
4.5
3.8
0
9.4
7.9
0
31.2
26

The assembly cost is for a

labour rate of $30 per hour

Design Efficiency =

8.8%

Time for parts deleted =

in ideal situation, sec

120.6

Time for parts deleted =

for redesign, sec

99.2

Redesigned motor after analysis;

two motor mount screws have been kept

Results for DFA analysis for redesign of Motor drive assembly

base
motor sub
motor screw
sensor sub
set screw
thread leads
plastic cover
Totals

1
1
2
1
1

1
1
0
1
0

1
7

1
4

Design efficiency =

3.5
4.5
12
8.5
8.5
5
4
46

2.9
3.8
10
7.1
7.1
4.2
3.3
38.4

26% This percentage approaches the range found,

from experience, for electro-mechanical devices

Savings in assembly cost = $

Increase in design efficiency =

0.95
348%

At the end of the changes

due to DFMA are:

DFA
DFAGuidelines
Guidelines
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Reduce number of parts

Reduce number of different parts - Standardize parts
Simplification of assembly
Reduction number of processes
Less fasteners especially screws & bolts
Reduce tangling
Orientation
1. Critical orientation obvious see & fit
2. Non-critical orientation fit in any direction
8. Ensure access & visibility
9. Easy part handling
10. Assemble from top
11. Reduce locating/alignment operations manual/time
consuming

Reduce
Reduce number
number of
of different
different parts
parts -Standardize
Standardize parts
parts
One Time Costs

Tooling
Design/Development
Contacting / Vendor Selection
Product Testing

Continuous Costs

Material
Assembly
Inventory
Inspection

Simplification
Simplification of
of Assembly
Assembly
Easier = faster
Less opportunity for mistakes
Easier to automate

Reduction
Reduction Number
Number of
of Processes
Processes
Less steps = faster
Less material handling = less damage
Less operations = less opportunity for
defects
Value Added processes in ~ remove NonValued Added steps

Less
Less Fasteners
Fasteners
especially
especially screws
screws &
& bolts
bolts

Left to right: simplest, low cost to most parts hardest to assembly

Boothroyd & Dewhurst Inc, 1999

Reduce
Reduce Tangling
Tangling // Nesting
Nesting

Takes time to
separate
Requires people
Hard to automate

Hugh Jack,
Jack 2001

So
So What?
What?
How does this fit it in with MECH 424?
How does this fit into Engineering?

Orientation
Orientation
1.

Critical orientation obvious see & fit

2.

Non-critical orientation fit in any direction

Ensure
Ensure Access
Access &
& Visibility
Visibility

www.detnews.com/2004/project/0405/04/901-134795.htm

www.uniontire.ca/tireassfr.htm

Easy
Easy part
part handling
handling

Size
Weight
Shape
Sharp edges
Sticky
Tangled & Nested
etc.

Reduce
Reduce locating/alignment
locating/alignment operations
operations
manual/time
manual/time consuming
consuming
Assemble
Assemble from
from
Top
Top

http://www.hfmgv.org/rouge/tour.asp#

Thank
Thank you
you for
for your
your attention
attention