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BUSINDS SOLUTIONS

F BY L.W. HENCHEYord Motor Company wants to be a champion again. TheDearborn, Mich.-based pioneer, like other American man­ufacturers, has been taking a bruising from imports, espe­

_ dally Japanese imports. American companies find theycannot go toe-to-toe with their Asian and European competitors,losing round after round-first TV and audio equipment and nowcomputer chips and autos. But all of that is beginning to change,thanks to new technology that could make American companiescontenders once more.

When Ford invested in design-for-assembly (DFA) softwarethree years ago, it was aiming for a little increased automation onthe production line. Today the company finds itself at the fore­front of a select group of producers championing a second revolu­tion--or, more accurately, a long overdue revival-in Americanindustrial thinking.

One thing is certain: This software-inspired back to basicsapproach undeniably produces results. Ford has not only shavedlabor and inventory costs, it's also improved product quality andserviceability and, in many instances, actually reduced the needfor more automated assembly. In a typical case, Ford personnelusing DFA's nuts-and-bolts approach to design succeeded ineliminating 35 percent of the parts cost and 65 percent of theassembly cost of a new windshield wiper. The benefits of suchguerrilla tactics on the small scale are crystal clear, and the bigpicture is even brighter. When the redesigned wiper assemblybecomes standard equipment on all Ford cars, savings on thatassembly alone could reach $2 to $3 million.

In the two years since DFA came on-line at Ford, the firm hasretrained 2,000 design engineers to use it, and has exported it tooverseas operations in Europe, South America, Australia, andMexico. Ford credits the software with overall savings approach-ing $1 billion. '

But Ford is far from alone in singing the praises of OFA, or inbacking its development. Giants such as IBM and General Electric(GE) are investing in DFA research, while other household nameslike Whirlpool, Black & Decker, and Xerox-which has trained

u.s. firms are slugging it out in theworld heaV'y"vVeight manufacturingring. Design for assembly is winningrounds, but can it score a TKO?

800 designers in its use-also rely on thesoftware.

Rebuilding American industry fromthe bottom up by simplifying designsounds to most producers like an ideathat's too good---or too simple-to betrue. In their search for what Ford DFAcoordinator Sandy Munro likes to callthe "computer panacea," t~e vast ma­jority of American companies may haveignored the most basic tenet of manufac­turing: "Getting it right the first time isthe key to making products better and

cheaper." But no one is blaming themfor hearing the clarion call of DFA aslittle more than an echo of the high-techbattle cry of the '60s and '70s. That ad­venture led American industry sloggingthrough a computerization campaignthat didn't always deliver the decisivevictories it promised.

Progress has been made, to be sure,but while today's finite element systemsmay represent an advance in technologyequivalent to the leap from a slide ruleto a desk calculator, at Litton Aero Prod-

ucts in Moorpark, Calif., technical staffmember Don Leonhardt still longs for amore substantial interplay between de­sign and production.

Likewise, Hriday Prasad, manager ofFord technology, dt":dopment and sup­port, still believes in the potential ofrobots. But he's realistic enough to char­acterize America's early forays into thearea as "good examples of adding high­tech to existing business practices, withthe result that all the robots had to besent to psychiatrists."

WANTED: 100/000 LEONARDO DA VINelS

Design for assembly experts Dewhurst and Boothroyd.

The most important element in America's movetoward a philosophy of designing for manufac­turing is the recognition of the human factor:we need a new breed. Says Ford design-for­

assembly (DFA) coordinator Sandy Munro, "The up­shot of all the computer tactics we're using in ourdrive toward simultaneous engineering will hopefullybe the creation of a renaissance engineer."

A prototype for the renaissance engineer is per­haps Leonardo da Vinci, the remarkable Italian artistwho could not be pigeon-holed. He designed heli­copters, tanks, bridges and towns as well as being apioneering naturalist who was one of the first to per­form scientific autopsies on human cadavers Whatda Vinci learned in one discipline helped him inanother. For example, da Vinci's observations offlying doves contribut­ed to his helicopter de­sign. Performing au­topsies helped himsculpt accurately.

But when Munro usesthe term, "renaissanceengineer" he doesn'tenvision polymaths likeda Vinci. Rather, he iscalling for a reversal ofthe over-specializationthat infects today'sengineering.

DFA co-designerPeter Dewhurst says,"Quantifying problemsin design and producing efficiency ratings is reallyonly the first step in establishing the atmosphere ofcollaboration between design engineers and manu­facturing engineers that has been the keystone of theJapanese success story."

Ironically, the "renaissance engineer" may havebeen left behind when the split between blue andwhite collar jobs in America became an irreparableone-a schism many execs today trace back to the

years following World War II."Design for manufacture can be achieved, but it

will have as much to do with re-establishing the sort ofcross-training of engineers that was discontinued inthe U.S. 25 years ago as it will with expert systems,"says Richard Bradyhouse, technical manager of pro­ducability for Towson, Md.-based Black & Decker."Cross-training is the most significant thing the Japa­nese have over American industry at this point.Though DFA software can have a big impact, wecan't ignore the importance of turning out engineerswho have a strong background in both the designand manufacturing ends of a business, as well as areal single 'can do' attitude toward improving prod­ucts at the design stage."

Happily, the recognition that-as Dewhurst putsit-"reuniting peoplefrom both ends is moreimportant to our rebuild­ing of the mallufactur­ing process than are vi­sion-based robotics"does seem to be takingplace, albeit in someunexpected waysWhile Ford and Black &Decker use DFA toachieve impressivecost savings, the twofirms have also foundan unexpected benefit:the software can alsocapture the expertise of

older manufacturing engineers, a process that provesto be essential in many cases.

"We didn't think of it as that sort of tool to begin with,"says Munro, "but, frankly, a lot of the information weneed to make design for assembly work is availableonly from old-timers, and the increased communicationbetween design and manufacturing engineers that in­formation-gathering process entails is all to the good."

-L. W. Henchey

Debugging on assembly lines is hideously expensive. Tweniy~five percerit of manufacturing costs are wasted on reworkingproblems that could have been addressed at the design end,

While DFA and its logical successor,DFM, may sound like the latest short­term computer salve for our country'swounded productivity, there is a criticaldifference. America's newest weapon inits assault on foreign competition doescome from the computer arsenal, butthis time around, the software is loaded.

EXPERT SY5'1EM5 TO THE RESCUE

In essense, what DFA offers over oth­er do-it-yourself expert shells is an actu­al database that hits the screen in theform of easily read charts and tables.Powered by an algorithm distilled from15 years of empirical studies, the soft­ware doesn't wait for something to hap­pen, but prompts engineers question­and-answer style. It forces them toassess designs piece by piece, part bypart, and to rate redesigns in real worldterms that reflect dollars, cents, and sec­onds saved in assembly time.

Ford is using DFA on everything fromwindshield wipers to door panels. IBMis employing it to design the ProPrinterthat takes three, rather than 30 minutesto assemble. The theory behind DFA isclear: "Every computer has a dollarkey," says co-designer Peter Dewhurst,"and designers should be able to dosomething with it."

And DFA hits that money key."De­bugging on the assembly line is hid­eously expensive. In fact, 25 percent ofAmerican manufacturing costs are typi­cally wasted on scrapping and re-work­ing due to problems that could havebeen addressed at the design end," saysSinger-Kearfott quality assurance engi­neer Paul Wojnizz. "But that's the pricewe're paying for trying to rush newproducts out the door.

"It's only recently that we've begun towake up to the fact that the Japaneseand other foreign manufacturers aren'tbeating us with technology per se,"adds Little Falls, N.J.-based Wojnizz,"but by their willingness to make drasticchanges in design to ensure success inthe long run."

Making the transition from post-mor­tem quality control to front-end problemsolving won't be easy. Dewhurst citesaeronautics and industries using print­ed circuit boards as problematic specialcases for the new application. Munro

stresses that widening the market forthe software will force the broadening ofthe database to account for a greaternumber of industry-specific issues.

However, DFA does represent a posi­tive step in America's march "stretchingbeyond a mere desire to reduce costsand into the need to survive," accordingto Jim Kaspar, mechanical CAD/CAMdevelopment manager for Seattle-basedBoeing.

Dewhurst claims that DFA today canaid in batch-manufacturing where "80percent of production costs are beingcommitted at the design end in terriblyinefficient ways." He sees an evengreater potential for reversing America'smanufacturing woes in the develop­ment of design-for-manufacture pro­grams that go beyond design critiqueand into the areas of material and manu­facturing-process selection as well ascost analysis at the conceptual stage.

FROM DFA TO DFM

DFM is an extension of Geoffrey Booth­royd and Peter Dewhurst's work withOFA. Its development consists of trans­posing existing tables into databases ad­dressing anyone of the dozen or moremain shape-processing techniques andmanipulating the information with infer­ence engines. Each given program estab­lishes a standard quantitative analysis. Inthe case of machining, for example, ev­erything is analyzed in terms of horse­power required, and for injection mold­ing, the key is tonnage and ram force.

While Ford already has a design-for­machining program on hand and ex­pects an injection-molding programsoon, DFM won't go on-line until fur­ther refinements are made, according toMunro. "DFM is still a CAD tool thatcan't really be isolated from all the othertools we're working with," he says.Munro hopes that DFM's cost cuttingpotential may be expanded to includeprocess planning.

Dewhurst aims a bit higher. He givesa window of at least two years beforeDFM programs currently in develop­ment will be ready for use in a majorityof high-volume manufacturing situa­tions. He expects that improvements inCAD will parallel the progress in DFM,resulting in OFM routines built into

quick-sketch solid-modeling systems ac­cessing both materials and processdatabases.

"As things stand today," says Dew­hurst, "it takes as long to get a sketch ona computer screen as it does on a me­chanical drafting board, and as a result,there is still a great reluctance on thepart of designers to change their de­signs. But with the advances in quick­sketch capability, we'll be able to makegiant strides not only toward more ef­fortless design but toward really signifi­cant cost reduction."

That accomplishment could takeBoothroyd, Dewhurst and other design­ers well into the 1990s. While it maysound like cost-control utopia, it willrepresent only a small victory in thebout against foreign competitors.

Still unclear is how fast and how farU.S. industry can go in approachingtruly simultaneous engineering, andhow big a role DFM programs can playin the campaign. Despite the progress atIBM's Lexington, Ky. installation in"getting rid of the paper and movingdesign into digital," development pro­cesses manager Reg Morris argues thatDFM programs capable of geometry­driven rather than equation-poweredparts analyses are essential for enlarginghis firm's commitment to production viacomputerized numerical control (CNC)machines. "We've come a long way,"says Morris, "but everything is definite­ly not in place." And while Munro seesDFM as a major factor in bridging thegap between CAD and CNC in produc­ing simple parts, he questions whetherproducing more complicated parts willever be achieved using OFM.

ROUND 3: SLUGGING IT ourStill, the mere existence of DFA is a suresignal that American industry is willingto take a new strategic tack in its battleagainst foreign manufacturers and­with the backing of U.s. businesses thatare now targeting two and three, ratherthan five year, new-product-develop­ment schedules--it seems clear that thecountry will come back slugging inRound 3.0

L. W. Hench~ is a New Jers~-based free­lance high-tech writer.

Copyrigtlt'. 1988 by CMP PUblications, Inc., 600 Community Drive, Manhasset, NY 11030. Reprinted with permission from BUSINESS SOLUTIONS.