Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘DFMA’ Category

I wrote an article on the level of savings when product designers are engaged in DFMA. 

Here is an excerpt:

 This month, Shipulski details the company’s lean product-design efforts as he issues a “call to action” for lean manufacturers everywhere to involve their product-design teams. 

Why should the manufacturing engineering community care about engaging the product design community in pursuits such as design for manufacturing (DFM) and design for assembly (DFM)? The answer is simple—to make (and save) money

(This post was published as an article.  View the article as a .pdf or .htm.)

Have we read enough, talked enough, circled, and delayed the issue enough to finally do something about the decline in US manufacturing?  Are we afraid enough yet, after each quarterly government trade report, to undertake what is obvious as far as engineering goes? We have the technical know-how in US manufacturing to take away the offshoring advantage of cheap labor.We can design high labor costs out of most products and have elegant assemblies ripple profitably down US manufacturing lines—for export and domestic consumption.

“We have to reassign the product costs mistakenly
placed on manufacturing departments.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Results from a new survey show that upfront design using DFMA methods creates significant savings in operational cost — downstream savings.

An exerpt from the survey:

Sixty-eight percent of a survey group, including Fortune 400 companies, measured an increase in production throughput, and 47 percent an increase in profit per unit of factory floor space, after applying Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA®) techniques to their organizations’ supply chains. A roundtable discussion of these and other results from the questionnaire, conducted by Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., is now available.

Respondents included Dell, Motorola, TRW Automotive, Raytheon, MDS Analytical Technologies, Magna Intier Automotive Seating and other leading North American manufacturers. Some participants also contributed to a candid roundtable discussion about applying design simplification and early costing to Lean and Six Sigma programs, along with the opportunities missed by industry in measuring financial best practices.

“Hyper” for Lean — Lean Directions, SME

Hypertherm’s lean journey began in 1997 as a natural and enthusiastic extension of its long history of continuous improvement. Founded in 1968, the company’s “lean vision” includes training, application of 5S components, visual factory audits, single and mixed-model flow lines and the engagement of its product design functions.

A recent Hypertherm success is found in the company’s HyPerformance series of plasma arc, metalcutting systems. The company’s product design community designed a product line with Read the rest of this entry »

John Teresco of Industry Week wrote a thought-provoking article on assigning responsibility of product cost to the design engineering community (and not to the manufacturing community).

An expert from his article:

“We in the United States have mistakenly allocated the responsibility for [production] cost to the manufacturing folks. We forget that the cost has already been designed into the product.”

That’s Mike Shipulski, director of engineering with plasma cutting technology provider Hypertherm Inc., reflecting on one of the lessons learned from implementing Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) software. The accomplishments include a 600% increase in profit per square foot of factory floor space within a five-year redesign program.  Correspondingly, warranty cost per unit declined more than 75% during the same period, from January 2003 to January 2008.

Five-year implementation of DFMA software by Hypertherm creates higher profits and strong business model for improving U.S. global competitiveness

WAKEFIELD, R.I., and HANOVER, N.H.,USA, June 2, 2008—Hypertherm, the world leader in plasma metal cutting technology, has achieved a 600 percent increase in profit per square foot of factory floor space using Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA®) software within a five-year redesign program. Correspondingly, warranty cost per unit has declined more than 75 percent during that same period, from January 2003 to January 2008.

  Read the rest of this entry »

What is a DFMA Culture?  (.pdf, 1 page)

John Gilligan of Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. asked me to describe a DFMA culture.   Here is my description:

At the highest level, a strong DFMA culture is founded on the understanding that The Product strongly governs most everything in a company. Product function governs what customers will pay for; product structure governs a company’s organizational structure; and product features, attributes and materials govern cost. Stepping down one level, the DFMA culture is founded on the understanding that product function and product cost are coupled – they are two sides of the same coin – and are considered together when doing DFMA. Read the rest of this entry »

Design2Part Magazine published a good article on DFMA’s ability to cut costs, labor, floor space and improve global competitiveness.

Design for Manufacture and Assembly Helps OEM Reduce Warranty Costs, Boost Profits — Design2Part Magazine

An expert from the article:

Five-year implementation of DFMA software creates strong business model for improving global competitiveness

“We started with a vision to make radical improvements in both product performance and product economies,” stated Mike Shipulski, Hypertherm’s director of engineering. “Hypertherm met both of these goals by aggressively applying Boothroyd Dewhurst’s software within our existing programs for robust design and lean manufacturing. We found their product simplification software made it easy for us to improve a product’s performance-to-cost ratio. Moreover, we learned that DFMA ideas and financial estimates also lead to profound savings beyond labor and part cost, creating a domino effect ‘downstream’ in operational areas of our organization.”