Design for Assembly

DFMA or Design for Manufacture and Assembly is a guide to simplifying product structure, reducing manufacturing and assembly costs and quantifying improvements. If implemented correctly DFMA can be used to identify, quantify and eliminate inefficiency in a design.

Historically in “over the wall” design issues regarding manufacturing and assembly were not discovered until being passed over the wall to the relevant departments. This lead to an increase in costs due to redesign, complicated tooling and inefficient assembly sequences.

DFMA is ideally suited for the early development stages of a product, however, implementation of the method is valid at any stage of a product’s life cycle if it is used to reduce costs.

DFMA is split into two categories, Design for Assembly (DFA) and Design for Manufacture (DFM), both complementing each other to form the DFMA methodologies described by Boothroyd and Lucas.

Projects:

  1. Retractable pen redesign using DFMA
  2. Electronic coin sorter redesign using DFMA
  3. Dimensional Management (DM) of product to improve quality
  4. The potential role of DFMA in the product development process
  5. Benefits of Dimensional Management within the Product Development Process
An electronic coin sorter reversed engineered, recreated and exploded in CAD.
An electronic coin sorter reversed engineered, recreated and exploded in CAD.
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Published by Jason Scupham

I am a First Class Honours graduate in Product Design Engineering (MEng) from Loughborough University. I have attained the highest grade in my class gaining a prestigious Carlton Laser Scholarship. In the future I hope to run my own design house creating products that will have a positive impact on the world we live in, focusing on consumer and healthcare applications. This blog is designed to exhibit my current and past work detailing the design process and decision points along the way.

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