What is Design for Manufacturing (DFM)?

What is Design for Manufacturing (DFM)?

What is Design for Manufacturing (DFM)?

Design for Manufacturing or Design for Manufacturing (DFM) is the optimization of a part, product or component design to create it cheaply and easily. DFM involves effectively designing or engineering a material, usually at the product design stage, to reduce the cost of manufacturing easily and at low cost. This allows manufacturers to identify and prevent mistakes or discrepancies.

Principles of DFM

DFM occurs early in product development, before the tooling and assembly process while designing the product. By doing so, manufacturing takes less time, which reduces costs and increases ease of production. The exact process of DFM depends on what product is being designed and manufactured. The general principles of DFM are designing materials for efficient assembly, standardization of materials and components, reducing the number of parts, and reducing the amount of manufacturing operations required on parts during assembly. Other fundamentals of effective DFM are standardization of parts to save on part cost, simplicity of design, which can reduce the complexity or number of parts required, and cut time.

What does design mean for manufacturing?

Generally, when this phrase is used it refers to Design for Design and Assembly (DFMA), a more comprehensive term for an engineering approach that aims to optimize time-to-market in the early design stages and limit production costs of the manufacturing process. However, in the past, it referred to two different practices, DFM and Design for Assembly (DFA). Design for assembly prioritizes the ease of assembling the material and is concerned with reducing the cost of the assembly process, while DFM has a wider focus on concepts such as parts design and therefore being able to reduce production. The cost of parts itself.

Why is design important to manufacturing?

For any business to make money and create profitable products, DFM is essential for efficiency, speed and high production rates. It is thought that approximately 70% of a product's manufacturing cost is derived from design decisions made in the early design stages, such as the materials used or the manufacturing method. DFM therefore has great cost-cutting capabilities. The focus on the design phase available through DFM can significantly reduce final manufacturing costs. It enables the identification, quantification and elimination of waste or inefficiencies at various stages throughout the manufacturing and production process. It can additionally be used as a benchmarking method and in doing so, a company can assess competitors' products.

Advantages/Benefits

• Products manufactured with DFM have lower production costs

• Quick time to market

• Shortening the product development process

• Production will soon pick up speed

• Parts can be combined to reduce assembly steps and parts quantity

• Catches and removes mistakes or errors

• The high quality of the product, the design can be refined and enhanced at every stage

• As construction activities can be removed from the site and relocated, DFM can create a safer work environment

How long does DFM take?

Naturally, the time taken for any process depends on the product, the parts, the manufacturing process and the complexity of the operations required. However, on average, a DFM process takes about two weeks to complete. For more complex products this number can increase to three or four weeks.

Design for manufacturing examples

Components with joints can be manufactured using snap fits, an efficient form of joining two parts together that saves time and money in production, reduces material costs and improves ease of assembly – with additive manufacturing, the joint can be 3D printed. Production stages

• DFM can be used in casting, where it enables the casting process and reduces casting defects by optimizing the shape and geometry of products.

In a recent real-life case, DFM was applied to the design of the gun sight of an American tank developed by Texas Instruments Inc., which reduced the number of different parts required for assembly from 24 to 8 and rapidly reduced production time.