Concurrent Engineering and Design for Manufacture of Electronics Products

This book is intended to introduce and familiarize design, production, quality, and process engineers, and their managers to the importance and recent developments in concurrent engineering (CE) and design for manufacturing (DFM) of new products. CE and DFM are becoming an important element of global competitiveness in terms of achieving high-quality and low-cost products. The new product design and development life cycle has become the focus of many manufacturing companies as a road map to shortening new product introduction cycles, and to achieving a quick ramp-up of production volumes. Customer expectations have increased in demanding high-quality, functional, and user-friendly products. There is little time to waste in solving manufacturing problems or in redesigning products for ease of manufacture, since product life cycles have become very short because of technological breakthroughs or competitive pressures. Another important reason for the increased attention to DFM is that global products have developed into very opposing roles: either they are commodities, with very similar features, capabilities, and specifications; or they are very focused on a market niche. In the first case, the manufacturers are competing on cost and quality, and in the second they are in race for time to market. DFM could be a very important competitive weapon in either case, for lowering cost and increasing quality; and for increasing production ramp-up to mature volumes.

1 Introduction: DFM Concepts.- 1.1 Why concurrent engineering?.- 1.2 Concurrent engineering as a competitive weapon.- 1.3 Using structure charts to describe the process of concurrent engineering.- 1.4 Concurrent engineering strategy and expected benefits to new product introduction.- 1.5 Concurrent engineering results in the introduction of a new electronic product.- 1.6 Conclusion.- Suggested reading.- 2 New Product Design and Development Process.- 2.1 The overall product life cycle model.- 2.2 The role of technology in product development and obsolescence.- 2.3 The total product development process.- 2.4 The design project phases: milestones and checkpoints.- 2.5 Project tracking and control.- 2.6 Conclusion.- Suggested reading.- 3 Principles of Design for Manufacturing.- 3.1 The axiomatic theory of design.- 3.2 The design guidelines.- 3.3 A DFM example: The IBM Proprinter.- 3.4 Setting and measuring the design process goals.- 3.5 Conclusion.- References and suggested reading.- 4 Product Specifications and Manufacturing Process Tolerances.- 4.1 The definition of tolerance limits and process capability.- 4.2 The relationship between manufacturing variability and product specifications for new products.- 4.3 Manufacturing variability measurement and control.- 4.4 Setting the process capability index.- 4.5 Conclusion.- Suggested reading.- 5 Organizing, Managing, and Measuring Concurrent Engineering.- 5.1 Functional roles in concurrent engineering: Design, manufacturing, marketing, quality, and sales.- 5.2 Design guidelines.- 5.3 Organizing for concurrent engineering.- 5.4 Measuring concurrent engineering.- 5.5 Conclusion.- Suggested reading.- 6 Robust Designs and Variability Reduction.- 6.1 On-line and off-line quality engineering.- 6.2 Robust design techniques.- 6.3 Robust design tool set.- 6.4 Use of robust methods in engineering design projects.- 6.5 Conclusion.- Suggested reading.- 7 Customer-Driven Engineering. Quality Function Deployment.- 7.1 Introduction.- 7.2 Quality function deployment.- 7.3 QFD and design systems.- 7.4 The four phases of QFD.- 7.5 Quality function deployment case study.- 7.6 Conclusion.- 7.7 Glossary of QFD terms.- Suggested reading.- 8 The Manufacturing Process and Design Ratings.- 8.1 The manufacturing process for electronic products.- 8.2 Design ratings for manual assembly.- 8.3 Design for automation and robotics.- 8.4 Examples of design for manufacture efficiency.- 8.5 Conclusion.- Suggested reading.- 9 Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerance Analysis.- 9.1 GDT elements and definitions.- 9.2 Cylindrical tolerance zones.- 9.3 Datums.- 9.4 MMC, LMC, and RFS.- 9.5 Controls.- 9.6 Feature control frame.- 9.7 Tolerance analysis.- 9.8 Tolerance analysis case study.- 9.9 Conclusion.- Suggested reading.- 10 Design for Manufacture of Printed Circuit Boards.- 10.1 Printed circuit design.- 10.2 DFM program requirements.- 10.3 Performance measures.- 10.4 Overall process.- 10.5 Conclusion.- Suggested reading.- 11 Reliability Enhancement Measures for Design and Manufacturing.- 11.1 Product reliability systems.- 11.2 Design tools and techniques for enhancing reliability.- 11.3 Product testing for enhancing reliability in design and manufacturing.- 11.4 Defect tracking in the field.- 11.5 Summary.- Suggested reading.- 12 Tools for Dfm: The Role of Information Technology in DFM.- 12.1 Information technology’s role in DFM.- 12.2 Information technology requirements for DFM.- 12.3 Planning the implementation of technology to support DFM.- 12.4 Implementing DFM technology.- 12.5 Lessons learned.- 12.6 Conclusion.- References and suggested reading.- 13 Knowledge-Based Engineering.- 13.1 Limitations of traditional CAD systems.- 13.2 Knowledge-based systems.- 13.3 Design example: plastic mold design.- 13.4 Summary.- Appendix A.- References and suggested reading.