PRODUCTION SYSTEMS AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

©1998 Joseph Martinich. All rights reserved. None of these materials can be stored, transmitted or reproduced by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise) without the written permission of Joseph Martinich. These materials may be used by students in classes taught by Professor Martinich at University of Missouri - St. Louis.

PRODUCT DESIGN

• The focus of every production system is the product(s) that is produced.
• Good product design plays a major role in moving us toward our "Ideal" production system
• Product Design Affects:
• The variety among our products

• The production methods and technologies required

• The ease with which the product can be produced/delivered
• The number and types of components, materials, and supplies required
• The skill and training required for production workers

• These factors ultimately affect
• The design, capacity, and locations of facilities
• The quality of the product
• The cost of producing the product
• The speed with which products can be produced and delivered
• How rapidly new products can be developed
• Even minor changes in the design of a product can have significant impact upon these factors
• Studies have shown that for some products over three-fourths of the final product cost and quality are determined by its design; subsequent process improvements cannot overcome poor initial design.

• By redesigning its 1997 Camry to reduce number of parts and simplify assembly, Toyota reduced its production cost by 20-25% ($2800) while making the car look "...like they've taken it up a notch, when in fact they've taken it down a notch, but the consumer's not going to know it." (Quote from auto consultant Christopher Cedergren, BW 9/16/96, p84)

• Service Product Design
• Frequently, the design of the product is often a design of the production system itself.

• Examples: Self-Service Gas Stations; Jiffy Lube; Electronic Commerce Products; Long-stay Hotels
• Residence Inns coined the "extended stay" concept. Requires different design of facilities (more "homey" - two room suites with kitchens and utensils, laundry facilities, swimming pools, fireplaces, breakfast buffets, grocery shopping service, two phone lines to allow a computer hook-up). But it has cost savings: less cleaning, less check-in/check-out time, fewer employees per room (1/2 to 1/10 the number.) They don't need expensive visible locations or advertising because they are not aimed at the "pull-over for the night" customer.

1. Product development begins with an idea about some type of consumer need or desire and a way to satisfy that need with a good or service.

Socio-economic and technological changes are two of the primary forces that create new product needs and desires.

• Two-income families =>
• House Cleaning Services
• Prepared Foods
• Birthday Party Services
• Technology =>
• Cellular Phones
• Electronic Commerce Products
• Computer Software

• Many good product ideas that satisfy legitimate consumer needs never become products:
• Market for the product is too small or too difficult to identify and serve, relative to the expected costs of product development and production.
• Measuring market potential at this stage is a difficult task because the "product" exists only as an idea with some rough description of its exact design features.
• Little is known about the cost structure to produce and distribute the product, and, therefore, the likely selling price and profit margins
• Usually market surveys and interviews are performed at this stage
• To determine the existence of a market
• To develop preliminary information on what features of the product are most attractive to the likely customers
• To determine what type of price structure would be most effective.

3. The next stage is to develop a detailed product design and prototype.

• The desired functional features of the product should be specified clearly.
• Preliminary production specifications and process designs can be developed; that is, some plan of how to make the product so as to have the desired functions must be developed.
• It is at this stage that the active involvement of people knowledgeable about operations becomes important.

• This design phase is iterative
• After initial functional and production specifications are developed, they are reviewed to evaluate the design with respect to various criteria such as achievement of customer specifications, expected quality and reliability of product, producibility and cost of product, and impact upon production of other products.
• After this review modifications of the product design and the planned production process almost always occur.
• At this stage preliminary development of some production documents that detail the components needed to produce the product, the sequencing of production tasks, and drawings of the product and major parts of the product can be helpful to guide the design process.

• Produce in small quantities initially
• Market testing is performed with an operational product (this may involve providing the product to small groups of test customers or actually promoting and selling the product in a test market).

• Additional design changes may occur to either improve the quality of the product or to reduce the cost of production.

• Based upon feedback from this market testing, a decision is made either to terminate the product or to undertake full production.

• In recent years many companies have substantially improved their competitive positions by dramatically reducing production costs and product development time and improving product quality and reliability.
• A large majority of these companies cited a change in their product design process as a major cause of these benefits.

• The Old Approach
• Historically companies used the "over-the-wall" design process
• Design was done by a specialized cadre of product designers

(In some cases the design effort was even segmented among designers; for example in the auto industry separate teams designed the interior and exterior independently, and then later had to merge designs! Also, engines were designed separate from transmissions.)

• Designers focused almost entirely on the functional, aesthetic, and marketing aspects of the product - little attention was devoted to how much it would cost to make the product or even whether the company could make the product.
• Customers were rarely consulted, except possibly via focus groups.

• Those in operations/engineering did not see the design until they were told to make/deliver the product.
• Robert Cizik (CEO of Cooper Industries described it this way (WSJ 1/15/91):

"The product designers would design the product and then hand it over to the manufacturing people and said, 'Now manufacture it.' In designing it they paid no attention to what is the capability of our existing factory? Can we meet these tolerances in the foundry? Do we have the right equipment, or are we going to have to buy new equipment, or can I design it so it fits our production lines?"

• Suppliers were not consulted: they were simply given specs for components and asked to bid on supplying the components
• Result:
• Many iterations between operations design and product design; costly and slow process
• Changes in design compensated for flaws rather than eliminating them; poor quality products

• New (Lean) Product Design Approach

1. Use a "Design For Production" Philosophy

2. Design the Product and Production Process Concurrently

3. Use Multidisciplinary Teams

4. Collaborate with Suppliers and Customers

• Designing For Production
• Typically 70-95% of the ultimate cost of the product is determined by its design
• The design dictates what equipment is used, what tasks must be performed and how, the level of quality testing required, etc.,
• By selecting materials, shapes, sizes, fasteners we can simplify and improve the production process, and utilize existing components, equipment, and skills
• By reducing the size of a car by one inch, an auto manufacturer eliminated the need to purchase a multi-million dollar tank for dipping the car in anti-corrosives
• Tools, such as Design for Manufacturability/Assembly (DFM/A), help designers to consider production methods while designing the product
• Ford reported $1.2 billion savings in one year by using Design for Production and DFM/A
• IBM reduced assembly time for Proprinter from 30 minutes to 3 minutes through better design

• Concurrent Design (also called Concurrent Engineering)
• Design and test the production process while the product is being designed.
• Potential production problems caused by product design are found faster so they can be corrected early in the product design cycle
• Benefits
• Forces product designers to be aware of production process and producibility of the product
• Reduces development and introduction time
• Correcting design flaws early reduces cost and improves quality: fundamental flaws are corrected rather than hidden or compensating features added
• Auto, Computer, Jewelry manufacturers report reductions in development time of 50-90% and large cost savings.

• Multidisciplinary Team Design
• Implicit in CE is that operations personnel must be involved with the product design at an early stage
• Teams normally include personnel from engineering, production, marketing, and purchasing, and even production workers
• Draws on knowledge from many disciplines
• Manufacturing Engineers at Boeing recommended a fuselage change in the 777 that solved a 30 year-old manufacturing problem
• Shop floor workers at GE's Erie plant suggested ways to simplify a complicated door that required sophisticated production equipment. The redesigned door uses 40% fewer parts and simpler tooling, which cut the cost by almost 30%.

• Supplier and Customer Involvement
• Lean Design Teams often include suppliers and customers
• Supplier Involvement
• Comparison of two customers buying similar subassembly from electronics company
• No supplier involvement = $75 cost to customer and 12% ($9) profit for supplier
• Supplier involvement = $25 cost to customer and 40% ($10) profit for supplier.
• Suppliers helped Chrysler save $325 million in 1997 through design and process suggestions. Chrysler estimates that additional ideas will ultimately save over $1.2 billion. (Example: Supplier suggested a way to reduce the number of catalytic converters from three to one.)
• At Mercedes' Alabama Plant; Mercedes has reduced the number of suppliers from 1000 to 100 primary suppliers. The suppliers will participate in product design and be allowed to adapt parts from off-the-shelf parts rather than starting from scratch.

• Customer Involvement

• Frequently a manager or designer believes he/she has a great idea, a product he thinks people should like, but never asks them.

• Quote from BW article, "Flops," by Christopher Power et.al., 8/16/1993,p. 78, which discusses differences between successful and unsuccessful product launches.

"So what are the steps to new-product nirvana?

For starters, a new product must satisfy a customer's needs, not a manager's."

• Most large software companies use beta-sites (test customers) to evaluate new software and suggest changes
• Fisher-Price uses parents and children to test new products and suggest improvements to existing ones
• Marriott actively involved potential customers (business travelers) in the design of their Courtyard Hotel chain. Customers were asked what features of a hotel they liked and disliked, and what features they would like hotels to offer. Hotel prototypes were then tested by actual customers, and their feedback was used to modify the design and amenities.

• Hyatt Hotels wanted to appeal more to family vacationers; they created the Camp Hyatt Kids Council comprised of children between the ages of 7 and 13 to advise hotel executives on how to improve their hotels for kids. (BW 10/18/1993, p 94-95, "How to Get a Little R & R with the Tots in Tow," Edward Baig)
• P&G found that older patients had trouble taking medicine from blister cards that hold a day's worth of pills. The patients also did not read instructions. P&G had a group of older people write their own instructions; they came up with a simple 14-word text and 3 drawings on the side of the package. The card which was divided into four perforated squares (each containing a six-hour dose) were marked "breakfast," "lunch," "dinner," "bedtime." (WSJ 1/30/97)
• Case Corp. (Makes farm and construction equipment) makes prototypes of its products and has customers use them. They are then questioned by Case engineers to get feedback on design.

• "Surprise! A Home Builder (Finally) Surveys Buyers," Stacy Kravetz, WSJ, 2/11/98
• Kaufman & Broad Home Corp., surveyed home buyers in Denver and found most did not want fireplaces if they could cut the cost by $2000. So K&B stopped making that standard. CEO Bruce Karatz said, "We were building what we thought this customer needed, (but we) should not be so presumptuous."
• It's easier to ask customers what they want than to use Mimi Vandermolen's approach at Ford: to design the Probe she had the male designers work in fake fingernails to appreciate their problems in cars; result was less bulky radio knobs and door handles.

• Lean Design uses 50-60% as many designers over the life of the design, and the membership of the team is more stable.
• Differences in Performance

The Basic Principles of Designing Products for Production

• The Underlying Meta-principle - SIMPLICITY

1. Minimize/Reduce the Number of Parts Used

Quote by consultant/designer Vincent Altamuro:

"The component piece that you eliminate are parts that don't have to be designed, you don't have to assign a parts number to, you don't have to buy, you don't have to count and inventory, you don't have to assign shelf space for it, it cannot fail inspection, you don't have to have a bowl feeder to feed it, you don't have to have a robot or person assemble it, and it can't break - so you are home free"

• GE reduced the number of parts used to make a circuit breaker box from 28,000 to 1275
• Keithley Instruments reduced the number of fasteners that assembly workers had to screw in or bolt from 36 to 2
• On one car design Chrysler reduced the number of parts by over 700
• IBM reduced parts in a printer from 150 to 60; cut the number of parts in its PCs from 400 to 200

• Ford used 10 bumper parts on Ford Taurus compared with over 100 for GM's competing Pontiac Grand Prix. (GM has since cut the number of parts in its bumpers to 10-20.)
• In 1995 GE introduced its first fundamentally new washing machine in years; it had 40% fewer parts. (BW 11/20/95 pp. 97-100)

• In addition to cost savings, reducing the number of parts typically increases quality
• Multifunction parts are more reliable than several single-function parts
• Fewer opportunities for assembly errors
• Note: there are times when additional parts may be beneficial.
• Volkswagon redesigned the front of a car, and by having one extra part in the design it could reduce the time for installing the engine from over a minute using several workers to 26 seconds using a process with no workers.
• Honda retained a seemingly useless part because it helped assembly workers assemble the car.

• Customers want variety, but at some point they become overloaded with options. Don't have different products where the changes do not give customers additional value - creates confusion instead.

• (BW 9/9/96 pp 96-104) Procter and Gamble found that when it cut its product offerings by 1/3 sales actually increased; they also standardized formulas and packaging worldwide, which reduced costs.
• P&G had 31 versions of Head & Shoulders Shampoo and 52 versions of Crest Toothpaste.
• It reduced the number of shampoo packages from over a dozen to two.

• Cutting the number of hair care products in half increased its market share by 5 points.

• (WSJ 3/12/98, "How IBM Turned Around Its Ailing PC Division," by Rju Narisetti) IBM PC division slashed the number of models of servers it makes from 3400 to 150; cut the number of components it uses in half (from over 400 to 200)
• Nabisco cut its product line by 15%

• Use the same components in multiple products
• Use the same packaging for multiple products
• Design the product so you can use the same (existing) equipment, facilities, and methods for multiple products
• Substantial Cost Savings
• New equipment does not have to be purchased; processes and facilities do not have to be reconfigured
• Workers do not have to be trained on new equipment, and replacement parts do not have to be maintained
• Items can be purchased or produced at a lower cost because they are purchased or manufactured in larger quantities.
• Less total inventory must be held to obtain the same stock-out protection and scheduling flexibility, and fewer items must be monitored, which lowers inventory cost.

• Fewer types of jigs, fixtures, and tools are needed and fewer tool changes are required in production run changeovers,
• Assembly workers become more efficient and have less startup losses during product changes when common components are used.
• Also can produce higher quality products that are cheaper and easier to repair:
• Parts produced in larger quantities generally have better consistency of quality,
• Typically there is less chance of using the wrong part in assembly and assembly workers are less likely to make an assembly error with fewer different types of parts

• Examples
• All auto companies are sharing parts and platforms among auto models; typically 50-70% shared
• (From: "Simplify, Simplify - It's Not Very Complicated," Dale Dauten, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10/20/97)
• Wendy's was considering adding taco salad to their menu. Rather than performing a complicated, expensive analysis (for $62,000) they determined that because they already had salads and made chili, all they needed were ladles and taco chips. So they bought three ladles and a three -week supply of taco chips for a total of $89. They tested it out and found that customers liked the taco salad. Product designed, tested, and introduced in 3 weeks for $89.

• P&G has moved toward using existing product formulae, packaging, and ad campaigns for international products. It saves money and allows quicker introduction. (BW 9/9/96, p. 102)
• "Reapplication is very, very important. A good reapplication is as good as a creation." [Herbert Schmitz, Head of P&G's Central and Eastern Europe Operations]
• Although packages are printed in different languages, Vidal Sassoon shampoos and conditioners contain a single fragrance worldwide; only the amount varies.

• Southwest Airlines uses one type of aircraft, only a few types of food (snacks). They try to minimize number of different pieces of equipment and materials used everywhere for their air-travel product.

• Citibank is replicating model branches developed in Chile and Greece and using them all over the world instead of recreating them from scratch (i.e., using common facility designs and fixtures).

• Standard components are those that are already being produced by a supplier for multiple customers (so-called "off-the-shelf" items)
• Components that are unique, especially those that have unusual dimensions, or require unusual physical properties, have to be specially made and often cost several times more than an existing standard component.
• Cost
• Standard components eliminate the costs of designing the component, buying and setting up unique equipment to make them, and training workers to make them. Standard components are also made in larger quantities - EOS.

• Quality
• Higher quality or performance parts can often be used at lower cost when they are standard rather than special parts.
• Example: Using a standard 0.75 hp motor is cheaper and provides a better performing and more reliable product than a (customized) 0.65 hp motor because less strain will be put on the motor.

4. Design the Product to Simplify and Fool-Proof the Assembly Process (and Repair)

• The simpler the process required to make a product, the less expensive and more reliable it will be.
• Many companies have discovered that simplifying the product design to accommodate automated assembly has made manual assembly so fast and reliable that it is sometimes less expensive to use manual assembly than automated assembly.
• IBM Pro-printer
• One way to help simplify the assembly process is to construct an assembly chart early in the design process. An assembly chart is a schematic drawing of how and in what sequence the components of the product will be assembled

• Primary Areas of Simplification
• Fasteners
• Use snaps rather than bolts and nuts or screws
• Orientation and Accessibility in Assembly
• Use circular and square shapes, which do not require special orientation.
• Design so item can be assembled by stacking - bottom to top, interior to exterior
• Design for Easy Testing
• Build as modules that can be tested as modules

• Design To Mistake-proof assembly and repair

• Design the product so that it can be assembled in only one way. For example, bolts intended to go in one hole should not fit in other holes. Similarly, electrical wires that need to be connected should be color coded.

• Example: (WSJ 9/3/93) GE Locomotive had two brushes that looked alike that went into traction motors; if wrong one inserted by maintenance, the motors would fail. Customer pointed this out, so GE redesigned it so the wrong part would not fit.

• A wide variety of model options for a product can be very expensive if each model has many unique parts or requires different processing or costly production changeovers.
• An efficient way to provide product variety at low cost is to use modularity.
• Suppose each model of a product is made using 5 main components/modules (e.g., disk drive, system board, RAM unit, monitor, keyboard).
• If there are 3 versions of each module, the company can make 3⁵ = 243 different models of the product using only 15 different modules (10 more than the number required to make one model). If each model had totally unique components, thousands of additional unique parts would be needed.
• Thus, the product can be customized for the customer, yet by using modules that are assembled near the end of the production process, this customizing can be done at little additional cost.

• General Strategy
• Divide the product into generic parts or modules
• Determine which variations of each module would be desirable from a marketing and manufacturing viewpoint.
• As much as possible module alternatives should be totally interchangeable
• As much as possible the modular options should be designed so they can be added at the end of the assembly process.

• Example: National Semiconductor Corp. is creating a library of circuit modules, so product designers can mix and match circuits to form new, customized micro-circuit chip products

• Do not specify components that have physical properties that are far more demanding than are needed to make the product function well under even extreme usage conditions.
• This simply adds cost without improvement in quality
• Do not require tolerances that are more demanding than your production process can produce

• For example, requiring that the length of a component be exact to plus or minus 0.001 inch when the production process is technologically able only to produce components to plus or minus 0.01 inch.
• To obtain components satisfying a 0.001 inch tolerance specification would require 100% inspection, sorting, and reworking those that fall outside the tolerance range; this can be prohibitively expense. Or a new process would have to be constructed.

• Final Product Quality is determined by the following

• Robust Design Attempts to
• Design products (and process) in a way that minimizes variations in product attributes (e.g., length, color, strength) resulting from production
• Design products to minimize the quality effects of variations in product attribute values (e.g. accommodates or adapts to variations)
• Design products to minimize the effects on performance and quality of different environmental conditions

• General Principles
• Choice of materials (type of metal, plastic, etc.), shapes, features (types of fasteners), and processes (speed, temperature, type of machining) can affect the amount of variation in product attributes that result from the production process.
• The fewer precision operations (drilling in specific locations) that must be performed, the less opportunity for variations

• Example: Connecting two 90-degree, bent tubes so that the total piece fits specific dimensions (distance between two "legs' is exactly 36" and the pieces lay perfectly flat).
• Non-robust design: connected by collar with bolts and nuts
• Requires cutting tubes exactly the correct length; drilling holes in collar; drilling holes in tubes;

holes must align perfectly; need collar, two bolts, and two nuts; must assemble by inserting bolts and rotating nuts.

• Robust design: Flexible collar with rubber interior that holds tubes in place
• Tubes can be cut a bit small; differences in length accommodated by the flexible collar
• Eliminates drilling of holes, bolts, nuts, and insertion and tightening operations
• Final product will be more consistently correct

• Service products can be simplified using the same principles as above. In addition, there are design issues of special importance to service products.
• Speed of service
• Ikea Furniture - slower service in exchange for lower prices
• Software/hardware help-lines 800 vs. 900 help-line numbers
• Huntington Bancshares promised 10 minute loan approval. It invested $ millions in computer and telephone technology. As soon as a telephone banker types in a few identifying details about the customer, the computer pulls up his/her records and completes the application, orders an electronic credit check, and then contacts by beeper one of two experienced loan officers who circulate among the cubicles in the phone center.

• Variety/standardization/customization of services
• Discount brokers vs. full-service brokers
• Charles Schwab defined new product by being between full-service and deep-discount
• McDonald's vs. Burger King
• Freight rail vs. multi-modal carriers
• Consolidated Freightways has expanded its product package (services) to become a "one-stop" shipper. They combine truck, rail, and ocean shipping services. (This allows companies to reduce the number of shippers/suppliers they must deal with.) This is its OWD.
• Packs its own trucks and loads its own freight into ship holds for overseas shipments
• Other shippers, such as UPS will perform consolidating of parts or even assembly operations along with shipping

(WSJ 4/29/1997) "More Firms Rely on 'One-Stop' Shipping," Anna Wilde Mathews.

• CompUSA expanded into installation, training, and on-site repair; higher margin business and increases user loyalty; fewer product complaints
• Hyatt Hotels went in opposite direction; it reduced some of its services (smaller wine list; beds not turned down except on request). At Chicago Hyatt, eliminating the nightly turndown saved $220,000 a year. (BW 2/27/95, p. 92)

• Extent to which customers will be involved in the production process (customer contact).
• Automatic tellers; self-serve restaurants, self-serve gasoline stations; most electronic commerce use customer in the process - speeds up service and lowers cost

• Gasoline Heaven (removed customers from the process to speed up service)
• If customers are going to be involved in the production process, either the skill requirements must be low or there must be training, guidance, and mistake-proofing built into the system

• Geographical area served
• Eastern Connection - Delivers only on Northeast Coast
• American Express - Worldwide services
• Citibank - Worldwide Financial Services

Product Design Tools

1. Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

• Developed by Prof. Yoji Akao
• A Structured Method to:
• Obtain customer preference information
• Convert preference information into product design (technical) attributes and rank the relative importance of the design attributes
• Facilitate benchmarking against competitors and reverse engineering of competing products

• Method
• Customers rank (weight) importance of product features (customer requirements) for their purchase decision

• Designers identify design (technical) attributes, which they can control, that affect the product performance along the customer requirements dimensions

• A technical attribute may affect several customer requirements
• Designers estimate the intensity of the effect between each attribute and requirement

• Data used to construct a "Relationship Matrix"
• Matrix is used to compute the relative importance of each technical attribute. Designers then focus on the most important attributes

• Matrix may be expanded by including competitive benchmarking

• Customers rank performance of available products along the product dimensions (customer requirements)
• Evaluate how well each competing product performs with respect to each customer requirements.
• Use reverse engineering to determine the form or value of each product's technical attributes
• Try to utilize best methods in your product
• Additional information can be obtained to form a more extensive table called the "House of Quality"

• Developed in late 1940's by Lawrence Miles
• Concentrates on the function of the product and its value to customer; tries to maximize value to customer relative to cost
• Main Aspects
• Use multidisciplinary teams
• Use systematic procedure for evaluating functionality and value (as determined by customer)
• Focus on Product Simplification

1. Gather Information

• List of components, their cost, features, requirements
• Estimates made of each component's contribution to the product's value
• Items are ordered either by highest cost first or highest cost to value ratio first

2. Analysis

• Items taken in order and analyzed by asking and answering a series of questions to improve the design. The answers should be two-word answers using a noun and action verb.
• What is the product or component?
• What is its function?
• What does it do? Why do we need to do it? (What should it do?)
• What characteristics are of value to the customer? How will the customer use it?
• What does it cost? Can it be done another way? Cheaper?

• We again ask and answer questions, such as:
• Can the item be eliminated?
• Can the item's function be combined with another component?
• Can a standard or existing (common) component be used?
• Can a different material be used?
• Can someone else make it better or cheaper?

4. Evaluation

• Each of the redesign ideas are evaluated to determine their effects on cost and quality (functionality). Those that reduce cost or improve quality without harming the other dimension are considered for adoption.

5. Adoption/Implementation

• Changes are made and results are monitored

• Note that the same question and answer, value-evaluation procedure can be used for evaluating each step of an operation or production process. This helps to identify steps that can be eliminated, simplified, or combined. We will use this later when we perform "Process Analysis".
• This can be used to analyze service products and the service delivery process
• What does this feature/task/activity contribute to the customer? What does it cost? Can it be eliminated?
• Example: SWA flies primarily short routes (1-1.5 hr of flight time). The types of meals that can be served on short flights gave little value to customers and they did not choose the airline for its food. So additional benefit did not justify the cost - no food (other than peanuts and cookies) are served.

• Based upon three principles:
• When the value of a product attribute deviates from its target value, the "cost" in terms of lower quality increases quadratically
• The design features of the product and production process together determine the resulting variability in product attributes.
• Using experimentation those products and process characteristics that affect product attributes can be determined, and by manipulating these the product can be designed to reduce the attribute variations resulting from normal production variations.

• Example
• Product
• Metal sheet with 0.005 inch smooth coating of plastic
• Product attribute: Smoothness and uniformity (SUR) of the plastic coating
• Product characteristics
• Type of plastic (viscosity)
• Type of metal (surface quality)
• Process characteristics
• Nozzle pattern
• Plastic temperature

• Belt speed (drying time)
• Drying temperature

• Computer Software or Hardware/software system that has the following features
• Graphics Capabilities
• Can draw or modify (e.g., scale) design easily with mouse, wand, or keystrokes
• Can see product from various perspectives
• Design and Retrieval of Data
• Can use database of existing components to start design or eliminate need for component
• Automatic Evaluation of Specifications (CAE)
• As design is changed, strength, weight, etc. are automatically computed
• Benefits
• Faster and less expensive designs; helps in using common parts
• Better quality - Can try more alternatives

• Developed by Boothroyd and Dewhurst
• Software/handbook contains design rules based upon experiments dealing with what factors affect speed and cost of machining and assembly
• Considerable focus devoted to
• Orientation and symmetry of parts,
• Types of fasteners used
• Materials used and machining required
• Type of assembly (Manual/automated)
• Used by hundreds of companies around the world, including DEC, GE, Xerox, and Westinghouse
• Ford uses it in designing new cars
• IBM used it to simplify the design of its printers
• Texas Instruments reports reductions in parts, fabrication time, and assembly steps of 70-85%

• An alternative, more specialized product:
• Software called "Designer's Apprentice" brings together data and more than 1000 rules of thumb to help someone design plastic parts and choose production methods.

• Models or Mock-ups of actual product or components (can in computer simulations of the product)
• Benefits
• Can have everyone on the design team talking the same language
• Customers can see and play with product
• Production people can use it to design and test their production process/methods

• Examples
• Case Corp. has customers use prototype farm and construction equipment; then they are debriefed to find ways to improve the products
• Clark Oil has a prototype service station/convenience store to train employees and to test new products.

• In 1985 it cost Ford $60,000 to perform actual frontal crash test. Today a computer simulation of the same crash costs $200 and takes just 15 minutes, and that will decrease to $10 by 2001. This allows concurrent design and testing of more alternatives. (Ford 1996 Annual report)
• Chrysler builds and tests prototype parts and machines on computer simulations; saves time and money.

International Product Design

• Sometimes products designed for one market can be used in other markets - provides cost savings and cross-fertilization of ideas
• Citibank used the same bank branch designs developed for Chile and Greece in other countries
• P&G has tried to use existing products from one country in other global markets
• In other cases products need to be customized or at least altered to suit the preferences of another culture
• Whirlpool found that clothes washers sold in Northern European counties had to spin-dry clothes better than those in southern Italy, where consumers often line-dry clothes in the warmer weather.
• Different packaging may be needed.
• In parts of Asia, Africa, and South America beverages need longer shelf lives, refrigeration is not reliable, and transport is rougher. So aluminum containers typically perform better than glass. (BW 10/6/97 p. 108)

URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~jmartini/pomnotes/webproductdes.htm
Page Owner: Joseph Martinich (Joseph.Martinich@umsl.edu)
Last Modified: September 10, 1998