Design for Manufacture (DFM)
The process of taking existing designs and re-engineering them for ease and cost-effective manufacture. The main goals of DFM are to simplify the production process, reduce costs and ensure high quality products can be manufactured. There are many factors that are considered when designing for manufacture such as material selection, manufacturing method, dimensional tolerances, design guidelines and product function or aesthetics. By anticipating manufacturing challenges early on it enables us to avoid costly redesign and speed up the production. It can also improve the performance and look of the final product when fully assembled. DFM bridges the gap between engineering and manufacturing by checking the assemblies are ready for large scale production.
The key aspects of DFM
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Material selection
Identifying materials that meet the products requirements, this could include factors such as operating temperature’s, tensile strength, UV light exposure and chemicals. Another main factor ensuring the material is easy to source and process which can have a significant impact on cost and lead times.
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Component design
Simplifying the parts to reduce excessive waste and operations, this can be achieved by reducing component weight and modifying part features. This will then reduce tooling costs and reduce the time in production. Every material and manufacturing methods have design guidelines for best practise. These should be considered and used as a guide when designing any component.
Assembly optimisation
Ensuring parts fit together correctly, which will reduce extra operations and reduce labour intensive processes. Understand how the parts will be processed or how assemblies will be built to reduce potential errors such as misalignment, wrong components being fitted and interferences due to incorrect dimensional tolerancing.
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Standardisation
Reduce the complexity of assemblies by replacing components with slight variations to a standard component. Try to use existing parts where available, instead of making bespoke components. Designing parts so they can be assembled in multiple directions such as left- and right-handed parts, so that you could have a part that can be used on either side. On the other hand, you might deliberately design parts so they can only go in one direction to stop parts being fitted or used incorrectly.