K-Form strives to present customers with the highest level of quality and value. Environmental compliance presents considerable value customers can take to market. The new process allows our customers to market globally in accordance with RoHS (ELV and/or WEEE) compliance.

The finish, as is true with all approved RoHS compliant chemical conversion coatings, is colorless. K-Form will work with customers during this time of transition to provide some degree of legacy finishing when gold is absolutely required. Please call to request a sample or discuss needs.

How

Next Step

• Form lasting business relationships
• Provide customers with an unparalleled service
• Translate knowledge, experience, and innovation into valued products

Resources

What if a process tool existed that could reduce product development cost and time to market while increasing product quality? Many product engineers and managers incorrectly believe that achieving improvements in all three areas is impossible. “It traditionally has been assumed that low price, high quality, and short lead time cannot be achieved simultaneously; that is, one goal has to be traded off against another. Recent innovations in manufacturing practices, however, indicate that the manufacturing process can be managed so that a trade-ff between these goals may not be necessary.” (Susman, 1992) Organizations leverage Design for Manufacturing as a process tool for competitive advantage creating better products faster.

What is DFM?

Design for Manufacturing is the concept of taking active consideration of realization while developing product. In other words, designing something to be made. The concept is simple yet many companies have great difficulty. DFM involves using cross-functional teams “to improve the product-process fit or to increase the degree to which the product and process are designed simultaneously.” (Susman, 1992) This requires more than a simple, cursory knowledge of the specific manufacturing processes. Organizations need experience-driven knowledge of processes working in concert as a system. Generally, this requires manufacturing personnel collaborating early in the design process. Optimally, designers (engineers) have a strong working knowledge of manufacturing systems from production experience in addition to robust process integration with manufacturing. Collaboration may generate significant objections from procurement or management as departments or vendors integrate. The objections may quiet after project gains become evident.

Techniques

Structured techniques exist for approaching DFM activities. Companies may develop a set of rules to analyze a design for problems. Software can also perform limited DFM. This approach only detects existing problems against a limited rule-set. Issues are generally not avoided, only discovered (reactive versus proactive).

DFM Rule Examples:

• Machining – No interior sharp corners
• Fabrication – Holes > Material thickness
• Hardware – Follow hole center to edge requirements for inserts

DFM Guidelines

Hard rules do not produce the best DFM results. A second technique involves understanding DFM guidelines. Guidelines present more flexible points of understanding, but are less concrete and require a more nuanced understanding of manufacturing systems.

Simplify – Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Fancy features might look impressive in CAD, but difficult geometry can seriously impair your ability to make rapid changes to a design. Keep it simple. Your functioning prototype will thank you. Avoid designing parts with features requiring specialized or non-standard tooling. Avoid relying on unfamiliar or prototypical manufacturing processes (at least without serious reservations and research).

Ease – Keep dimensional tolerances, including geometric tolerance, within reasonable expectations for the desired processes. Overly restrictive tolerances are a significant cost driver. Over-reliance on tight tolerances may result non-repeatable designs or issues during assembly. Design tolerances as loose as functionally possible and avoid tolerance stack-up issues.

Reduce – Ford reduced the number of components in his engines. This lowered the total cost, sped assembly, and ultimately contributed to the automobile as an accessible part of American life (Dennis, 2007). Combination will translate several parts into a singular part. This reduces setup and inventory costs.

Standardize – Modularity reduces the number of unique parts across product families thus reducing costs per item (overhead, prototyping, process design, etc.) and gaining some economy of scale. This holds true even in the modest lean of manufacturing systems. Methods of standardization include mirroring (left to right agnostic), adjustable (slots or holes series for example), or even configurations (similar parts with variable features driven by design tables).

Collaboration

Collaborative design process techniques, such as concurrent design/engineering, present a final, best solution. Working directly with manufacturing personnel early in the design process will proof features for existing processes, prepare for any challenges, and allow the entire team to buy into the design. Collaborative design and manufacturing techniques dramatically reduce lead times (Susman, 1992). Manufacturing knowledge requires years of experience to gather and understand. No software or rule-set can replace the expert knowledge experience provides.

Benefits of DFM

• Lower design costs
• Less design iterations
• Faster development cycles
• Cheaper/faster prototype manufacture
• Cheaper production manufacturing (high ROI)
• Tighter integration with manufacturing
• Implementation of lean manufacturing
• Higher quality (lower defects)

Why Organizations Ignore DFM

• Zero sum philosophy of business
• ”Not invented here” syndrome
• No manufacturing personnel
• DFM limits creativity argument

Summary

Design for Manufacturing is a simple concept with clear benefits. Companies can experience large value gains by collaboration with manufacturing personal. DFM enables your product to be Lean from the start.

Citations

Anderson, David M. Design for Manufacturability & Concurrent Engineering: How to Design for Low Cost, Design in High Quality, Design for Lean Manufacture, and Design Quickly for Fast Production. Cambria, CA: CIM, 2010. Print.

Dennis, Pascal, and John Shook. Lean Production Simplified. New York: Productivity, 2007. Print.

Susman, Gerald I. Integrating Design and Manufacturing for Competitive Advantage. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print.

Why

Peter Drucker (management guru) said, “A business can only be judged by results” and “results can only be observed from the outside perspective.” A dominant outside perspective is the customer. From a systems perspective, K-Form interacts with customers on a broader value chain to deliver products to the open market. The success of a project or general service directly contributes, in varied degrees, to customer success. Conversely, customer growth validates our business.

How

K-Form analyzes the customer base using a internally developed customer maturity model. We look at involvement over a 5 year period for trends. Analytics sort customers by volume with growing, stable, and declining indicators. The top 20 customers, both for the current year and preceding year, receive more analysis and discussion. The focus of the analysis is to determine the validity of our conceptual customer and what types/levels of engagement work. Simply put, we want to know – What do our customers look like?

What

K-Form decided to analyze the growth of top customers and made an interesting discovery. Of our top 10 private sector customers, Large organizations had purchased more than 50% of our best customers. In general, we work with small groups* of creative professionals, such as engineers and designers, to realize product. These small groups often grow into innovative powerhouses attracting large, powerful companies. We feel lucky when the small business environment and culture remain to leverage big business needs and capital. Unfortunately, that scenario is infrequent. After a time, we see the small business hunger fade and often our stake fade as well. This is a common customer business life-cycle trend supported by our historical trends. High levels of engagement and integration are difficult with large corporations (with notable exceptions) and perhaps internal resources are more appealing.

Customer success proves the value in the service a business offers. We are honored by their growth. With the increasing business community discussion of customer engagement and customer focus, customer success is an essential measure.

*The term “small groups” might be slightly misleading. K-Form works for some of the largest organizations in the world. These organizations maintain small groups in a project-centric environment. This allows K-Form to maintain a personal relationship with the engineers and purchasers.

Organizations pretend that crunching numbers from mass customer surveys have enormous value. Statistically, people only comment when at extreme polar ends of satisfaction. If I were completely dissatisfied, I might not even bother responding (why should I waste even more time explaining what went wrong). At K-Form, I have seen vendors ruin a delivery and almost immediately send a satisfaction survey. They should already know the answers from the compliant phone calls or at least from the returns. If the vendor had more robust customer relationship management processes or software, the situation would be clear.

Like many phenomenon, satisfaction may be difficult to define, but the results are observable. Break satisfaction down to its logical components and indicators (results). The components of satisfaction are the foundational expectations of service. If you meet delivery schedules with quality product, you provide the baseline components of customer satisfaction, but that does not measure actual satisfaction. Satisfaction is a subjective emotional response that is difficult to objectively quantify. This fact makes customer satisfaction metrics dangerous to business as, without careful thought, implementation will clash with core management principles (management by fact).

Only results provide objective indication (albeit through indirect measurement). The ultimate indicator is retention. Continued business with a customer confirms your organization achieves the minimal level of satisfaction. Growth in business involvement (either in number of different services or total quantity of service) is perhaps a better measure. In a later post, I will talk about referrals as a strong indicator of customer satisfaction with both objective and subjective elements.

Customer satisfaction is impossible to objectively measure. Indicators can only correlate business results to the nebulous concept of satisfaction. Implement key performance indicators that are important to your business (drive intelligent business decisions). Talk with customers. Listen to customers. Satisfy customers. Forget satisfaction metrics.

Brand Focus, Tough Decisions

K-Form has never had sales people for the software. The software was never a commercial success. The development investment was roughly equal to that of a small business or mid-market ERP system. The software helped us to grow, but became a distraction. We made a tough decision to examine:

• What are our core competencies (what makes us money)?
• Who are our customers (who pays for #1)?
• What is the purpose of our business (why do we exist)?

Who Are We?

Moving Forward