Product Design

1 Introduction

There are several contributing factors in designing a manufacturing system. When there is an urge to design a new product, there are many hurdles that need to be crossed. One example of this is how much space is allowed to design a product. The answer to this question is given by determining the size of the facility and the number of workers able to ergonomically work on the production line. Another question that needs to be answered is how much profit is going to be made. To determine if the product will actually reap profit, material costs and other demands should be observed to see what type of production system would be needed for the assembly process. How does the design of the product influence the design of the manufacturing system, including the assembly and the production system? The key to answering the question lies within breaking the components down to define each design, and incorporate it with assembly methods with the layouts of a production system. This paper will evaluate the design of a product including how customer demands influence preliminary engineering design. A brief history of design is included to provide an overview of the steps needed to take to begin product design in manufacturing systems. Other topics include: Types of design, Product design for Manufacture and Assembly, how does DFMA work and the advantages that DFMA holds, Manufacturing Systems, Flexibility, Layout, Flow, and Production Systems.

2 Product Design

The purpose of this section is to provide a brief overview of product design. As this paper will prove that product design directly influences the design of a manufacturing system including assembly and the production system, but there are also several factors that influence product design. One such influence on product design this section presents is customer demand. Other factors include the cost of designing a product, and other costs associated with that product. There are also several...