Methodology for capturing and formalizing DFM Knowledge

Design for manufacturing (DFM) practices lead to more competitive products from the point of view of cost, development time and quality. However, the success of considering manufacturing issues during design process would be higher if manufacturing information was more readily available and designers needed less experience to select information relevant to DFM. This paper presents a method for identifying and formalizing the relevant manufacturing information that designer should have available for DFM. The method is based on the Axiomatic Design theory W. It helps the designer capture the relationship between design and manufacturing information. The information related to obtaining the design parameters that achieve product functionalities is the most relevant DFM information. A case study where the method is applied to the design of a connecting rod for an alternative internal combustion engine is presented. The manufacturing processes considered were hot closed die forging and powder metallurgy. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.