New DFMA® 2006 Software Targets Cost Reduction in Product Manufacture

Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., today announced DFMA® 2006, a new version of the company’s internationally recognized Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA®) software. The software contains new versions of both modules in the integrated DFMA suite: DFA Version 9.3, and DFM Concurrent Costing® Version 2.2. DFMA 2006 software guides engineers through the process of simplifying a product design, then quickly estimates assembly labor and part manufacturing costs. The software isolates the major cost drivers associated with a wide range of choices for part manufacture and finishing. Important features in DFMA 2006 are new tools for comparing the cost of automatic versus manual product assembly and for estimating the cost to manufacture printed circuit boards. Through a quantitative, multidisciplinary approach to cost assessment, DFMA software helps companies create innovative, high-quality products that are more economical to manufacture. A considerable side benefit to the organization is overall cost reduction. When products have fewer parts, companies have fewer digital archives to maintain and can streamline suppliers, inventory, and shipping. When products are easier to manufacture, companies can improve factory throughput and overall resource use. “We set our DFMA redesign goals at 50 percent for cost reductions in labor and assembly, and typically we meet or exceed those targets,” says Mike Shipulski, director of engineering at Hypertherm, Inc. “Our management is always happy about achieving these significant financial numbers, and they know that the total savings are far-reaching, extending beyond manufacturing to the reduction of facility, handling, and overhead costs.” “At Solectron, we’re utilizing our deep expertise in product design and manufacturing to help OEMs improve product manufacturability and time-to-market, enhance quality and reduce costs through front-end collaborative design,” said J. W. Krueger, Senior DFM Engineer at Solectron Corporation. “The Boothroyd Dewhurst software application is a critical enhancement to Solectron’s NPI service offering. As part of Solectron’s mechanical design service, the DFMA capability enables us to help OEMs reduce product complexity and failure rates before prototyping even begins. Early identification of design issues significantly reduces costs and speeds up new products moving into production at lower costs.” DFMA 2006 software contains an extensive set of industry-tested early cost models for material and manufacturing processes, including sheet metalworking, machining, structural foam molding, plastic extrusion, injection molding, thermoforming, blow molding, cold and hot die casting, hot forging, powder metal processing, sand casting, and investment casting. DFMA 2006 now adds two new processes for estimating manufacturing costs: A printed circuit board process that incorporates cost models for bare board manufacture as well as population, or assembly, of the board. The cost estimate for bare board manufacture is based on complexity and includes costs for internal and external circuit generation, lamination, AOI testing, hole drilling, solder masking, legend printing, and final circuit testing. With this new software capability, product development teams can include estimates for printed circuit boards in early cost profiles for electromechanical devices. An automatic assembly process that estimates the cost of assembling a product on an automatic high-speed assembly machine. For comparison purposes, the software also computes the estimated cost of assembling the same product on a manual assembly line. For over 20 years, manufacturing companies in every industry have used DFMA software from Boothroyd Dewhurst to identify and reduce the major costs associated with making products. Papers delivered by dozens of manufacturing companies at the annual International Forum on DFMA (http://www.dfma.com/forum/index.html) report using the software to cut overall product cost by an average of half. DFMA software operates in Microsoft® Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. About Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., was the first company to commercialize Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) methodologies and software tools, which make it possible to evaluate, estimate, and reduce the manufacturing cost of a product in the design phase through product simplification and cost estimation. Hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies, including Dell, John Deere, Harley-Davidson, and Maytag, use DFMA to cut the costs of their manufactured products and achieve design innovation in their markets. The company was founded in 1983 and received the National Medal of Technology Award in 1991.