PROACTIVE DFA AND THE DESIGNERS' SANDPIT

Design for Assembly (DFA) has a major impact on the way in which a product is structured and what it costs to produce. However, there is a tendency to use DFA to achieve cost reductions on products already in production or at best, in the later stages of the design process. The greatest opportunity for business benefit is to use DFA in a feed forward or proactive mode to influence the early stages of the design process. The paper reports on progress towards the development of the 'Designers' Sandpit' where DFA procedures are integrated with advanced computer-aided design concepts to realize an assembly-oriented design environment.