Shipulski On Design

Posts Tagged ‘Part Count’

“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 »

Free Up Floor Space with Design for Assembly and Part Count Reduction

By Mike Shipulski, Director of Engineering, Hypertherm, Inc

Design for Assembly (DFA) methods have been around for over 25 years, but the number of companies using the methods is surprisingly low given that they are straight-forward, fast, and produce significant savings in traditional Value Added (VA) metrics: labor content and material cost. Now that LEAN has raised the world’s awareness of the importance of reducing Non-Value Added (NVA) activities, the true value of DFA methods can be appreciated.

As a first principle, Design for Assembly (DFA) methods focus on part count reduction. Part count reduction results in labor content reduction (fewer parts to assemble) and material cost reduction Read the rest of this entry »