Design for Production: a Tool for Reducing Manufacturing Cycle Time

This paper describes a decision support tool that can help a product development team reduce manufacturing cycle time during product design. This design for production (DFP) tool determines how manufacturing a new product design affects the performance of the manufacturing system by analyzing the capacity requirements and estimating the manufacturing cycle times. Performing these tasks early in the product development process can reduce product development time. The paper presents a comprehensive DFP approach and describes the components of the DFP tool, which gives feedback that can be used to eliminate manufacturing cycle time problems. We present an example that illustrates the tool’s functionality.