Process Design Requirements

This article addresses the requirements that some of the current manufacturing trends put on manufacturing process design and the implications of those requirements. It explores the challenges and many of the tools that process design engineers use to translate those requirements into effective and efficient manufacturing designs.

Keywords Cell Manufacturing; Design for Manufacturing; Flexible Manufacturing Environment; Just In Time Manufacturing (JIT); Manufacturing Design; Manufacturing Design Collaboration; Manufacturing Execution System (MES); Manufacturing Reuse; Mass Customization; Modular Design; Process Design Requirements; Process Design; Process Engineer; Product Design; Product Lifecycle Management System (PLM); Simultaneous Engineering; Systems Integration; Target Costing

Manufacturing > Process Design Requirements

Overview

In today's global, ultra-competitive marketplace, new ideas need to be turned into products rapidly in order to build brand loyalty, maximize revenues before competitors can launch similar products, and create barriers to switching brands. Being the first to market can also create opportunities for the company to set standards for new technologies, which provide huge advantages in the creation of future products.

Product Realization

But how does a new idea turn into a tangible product? Lu (2006) defines three stages for product realization (bringing a product from conception to reality):

• Product Design;
• Process Design;
• Process Execution & Process Improvement.

Product Design

Product design, the first stage of product realization, takes place once a market opportunity has been identified and a conceptualization of a new product to address that opportunity has been completed. At this time, product engineers, usually in the research & development arm of the company, create conceptual designs, develop prototypes, and prepare detailed blueprints for the new product. These blueprints meticulously specify the components of the product, what it will do, how it will work and what it will look like.

Process Design

While the first stage defines the product itself in great detail, it does not address the equipment, materials, skills, layout and procedures required to actually make it. This is the job of the process engineers in the manufacturing arm of the company tasked with making the product, which today is very likely to be a contract manufacturer in a far-flung, overseas company. In this stage, the equipment needed to make the product is identified and acquired, raw material and component suppliers are engaged, detailed procedures are written for every step of the manufacturing process, and workers with the appropriate skill sets are hired or transferred to the project.

Process Execution & Improvement

In the final stage, the product is actually manufactured, and refinements to the production processes are made over time to improve efficiencies and ensure quality.

Importance of Process Design

Much has been written about product design, and even more has been written about manufacturing processes and continuous improvement. However, process design has been given relatively short shrift even though it's clear to see in Lu's product realization model that process design is a crucial step to successfully bringing a product to market. This is especially true as the marketplace applies more pressure for customization and rapid turnaround, as we will see later in this article.

Although we live in an increasingly virtual world, manufacturing is still, by its very nature, grounded in physical medium. Raw materials, parts and assemblies are manipulated in very complex ways to produce goods used by consumers and businesses. Manufacturing environments not only contain machines and equipment for production, but also material handling equipment (e.g. conveyor belts, fork lifts, automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS), etc.), communication and control systems and maintenance support structures (Barros, 2003). A manufacturing environment must provide for efficient and safe flow of work, minimal waste (in time and materials), maximum concurrent processing, and proper quality control measures.

Product Failure

Because these processes are complex, and require expensive equipment and skilled workers, it is clear that a poorly designed manufacturing process can result in the failure of even the most brilliant product. At their worst, these failures are manifested by quality issues that result in safety hazards which can cause consumer injury and hugely expensive product recalls.

Probably the most glaring examples of quality issues in manufacturing are the recent recalls of products manufactured in China, particularly lead- and magnet-laden toys. While the US-based companies that designed and branded these toys did not purposely design lead paint and dangerous magnets into the product, poor oversight and surreptitious cost cutting on the manufacturing side resulted in inadequate or nonexistent quality control processes.

While more subtle, costly failures can also be attributed to poor process design beyond the realm of quality. A design process that is inefficient can lead to higher than expected product costs, which in turn lead to reduced profit margins or underperformance in the market due to higher consumer prices and eventual termination of the product.

Goals of a Well-Designed Process

In essence, a well-designed process for manufacturing will:

• Maximize profit margins through cost-effective manufacturing processes;
• Speed products to market by maximizing the efficiencies of layouts and flow;
• Ensure high quality in the finished product by implementing appropriate control and assurance procedures.

Collaboration

One shortcoming in Lu's sequential depiction of product design and process design is that it does not show the crucial interdependence between product and process designers, and how significantly a lack of collaboration can result in delays to product launch, quality issues and inefficiencies, which can often depress profit margins. Schilling (1998) takes a speed-to-market perspective when she identifies her own product life cycle; including the development of the idea into concept (quality control is included in commercial production).

• Opportunity Identification
• Concept Development
• Product Design
• Process Design
• Commercial Production

Importantly, Schilling draws attention to the fact that these processes should not be sequential and identifies the greatest need for parallelism between product design and process design. This parallelism, she asserts, is necessary to shorten time to market (cycle time) in order to reap the most economic benefit from the product. This parallelism also addresses quality and efficiency.

Parallelism is particularly vital in complex products, like automobiles, that include a number of technologies and disciplines in a single product — e.g. electronics, mechanics, metallurgy, aerodynamics and much more.

Particularly with modern process simulation capabilities, it makes ever more sense for product designers to collaborate with process designers to ensure that products are designed in ways that minimize production costs and maximize speed and quality. A 2000 study of 137 North American manufacturers, conducted by Associate Professor Morgan Swink and doctoral candidate Dongsong Zeng at Michigan State University, found that the "crucial factor in achieving quality and speed" is the extent to which a company's manufacturing processes can deliver what the product designers envision" (Moody, 2001).

Design for Manufacturing

Yet another way to look at process design is the extent to which a company can deliver a design that the manufacturing plant can efficiently produce. One of the hot topics today in product and manufacturing design is the philosophy of Design for Manufacturing (DFM). This concept is based on the premise that product design should be based on the capabilities of the manufacturing plant. Specifically, it should minimize the number of parts needed, maximize use of existing equipment and capacity, and minimize the number of steps and adjustments in the manufacturing process. While this seems right and obvious, it is not traditionally how things have been done.

Some elements of DFM were naturally in place in earlier days when product design took place in the factory, and contact with manufacturing engineers was as easy as a stroll down the hall. But with today's increasingly outsourced manufacturing, product designers are often far removed from process designers and shop floor technicians. The old way of designing a product the way the design engineer thought best, without regard to its production, simply does not work in today's complex, cost-driven and far-flung manufacturing environment.

One area where DFM plays an especially crucial role is in environments where the manufacturer is using target costing. Rather than setting prices based upon manufacturing costs, target costing determines the appropriate price based on market conditions, and then sets the cost under which the product needs to be produced. Thus, the product and process engineers must collaborate to determine how to produce the product effectively at the given cost.

Flexible Manufacturing Environment

A Flexible Manufacturing Environment (FME) is an integrated system composed of manufacturing and material handling equipment, automated communication and control systems and a proactive, responsive maintenance support structure (Barros, 2003). Companies that implement FME are in a much stronger position to work with DFM, in that they provide more options to process design, since the factory floor can be more easily adapted to product design within general constraints. A company with a DFM philosophy and a FME is very well positioned to compete in the market.

Areas Critical to FMEs

Barros (2003) identifies four critical modules to be considered in designing a Flexible Manufacturing Environment (FME):

• Automation & Robotics: Deals with the selection and integration of plant hardware, which includes everything from fixed systems that deal best with high volume to highly programmable systems best used for small, customized batch jobs (highly useful in just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing and mass-customization). Robotics are increasingly being used, particularly in the "four Ds of robotics: Dirty, dull, dangerous or difficult tasks" (Barros, 2003).
• Production Planning, Scheduling & Plant Layout: Deals with maximizing throughput and cycle time through efficient layout and finely tuned scheduling that minimizes idle time.
• Logistics and Maintenance: Deals with ensuring that materials are available when needed for production, flow smoothly and efficiently through the plant, maximum uptime of equipment through preventative maintenance and the availability of replacement parts and rapid response systems to deal with equipment failures.
• Command and Control: Deals with the operational software, and links the other three modules. It is concerned with flow optimization through the production system.

FMEs typically utilize cell manufacturing to facilitate process design and support DFM. Cell manufacturing focuses on small lots rather than large batch production, and is central to Lean Manufacturing environments. In cell manufacturing, all the equipment and skills needed to produce a part or product are located in one area, or cell, to facilitate the rapid movement of the product from start to finish and out to the customer. It greatly reduces or eliminates inventory and all the costs of handling that go along with it. From a DFM perspective, cell manufacturing is ideal, in that it allows for the design of a complete micro-manufacturing unit dedicated to the given product. In a sense, it represents the factory side of the flexibility equation for product and process design.

Approaches & Tools for Process Design

It is clear from the previous discussion that process design is a vital piece of the product management life cycle. Now the question arises of how to best develop a cost effective, efficient process design. There are a number of techniques and practices that manufacturing engineers leverage in the design of processes in order to meet, many times, seemingly impossible goals for production.

Cross-Functional Teams

DFM is often first implemented with cross-functional teams whose responsibility is to ensure collaboration between product and process design, and the manufacturing process itself. Swink's study discovered that several companies, including Pella, Maytag and Mercedes Benz, were using a methodology called 3P (Product and Process Preparation) and found it to be particularly effective. This methodology requires a 5-day structured session with manufacturing, engineering, design, procurement, maintenance and shop floor operators to brainstorm product and process design options. Maytag has seen productivity improvements of 25-30%, and a 90% reduction of line defects through the use of 3P.

Systems Integration

In addition to human collaboration, of course, is the need for systems integration. Manufacturers typically use Product Life-cycle Management (PLM) systems to manage a product from its conception to the market and on to its end of life. Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are software systems utilized to link and control the factory floor equipment, providing the command and control arm of the manufacturing environment. However, historically, these systems have not been integrated. Linking these systems enables collaboration among design engineers, process engineers, quality specialists and shop floor technicians, leading to better designed manufacturing processes. This integration is getting much more attention as vendors of these systems work to close the gaps.

Simultaneous Engineering

Simultaneous engineering is a collaborative and iterative approach to product and process design that works particularly well for complex products that involve multiple disciplines. In this approach, which is essentially an early version of DFM, the initial product design is reviewed by the various domain experts (e.g. quality assurance engineers, process designers, machining experts, etc.) for input. These experts identify potential problems with the design and may suggest changes. After modifying the design based on the input, the product designer resubmits it for review. This cycle continues until the domain experts can identify no further potential problems.

Modular Design

The modular design approach looks at the final product as a sum of its parts. For a process design engineer, this means defining parallel processes in the manufacture of the product where subcomponents are developed in tandem to shorten cycle times and lead times. This focus begins with the final product, and works backwards to define efficient processes.

Reuse

Reuse of existing manufacturing processes and parts is another avenue of time and cost savings. If raw materials, parts and assemblies currently used in other products can satisfy the requirements of a new product, they are leveraged accordingly. This approach can save enormous amounts of money by avoiding investments in new equipment and skills when current capabilities can be leveraged instead.

All of the above, and many other tools and approaches being introduced into manufacturing companies, speeds time to market, improves quality, and facilitates parts and process reuse. They accomplish this by preventing design issues from reaching the shop floor, reducing the complexity of parts and products and creating manufacturing processes that are naturally well designed for the product. At their best, these tools help to optimize designs and exploit manufacturing capabilities for maximum efficiency and cost reduction; that is, facilitate DFM.

More Pressure — Mass Customization

One area in which all of this really matters is mass customization, which is becoming prevalent to the point of requiring manufacturers, particularly of consumer goods, to consider how they might apply this to their own products. Mass customization refers to producing to order, where products are produced in very small lots (even as small as a single unit) and customized at some level. This is different from one-of-a-kind products that have always been available at a hefty price, and normally done in artisan-level, local shops. Mass-customization involves producing large volumes of customized products, making process design particularly challenging.

Customization can be superficial, such as the customization of cell phones by adding various patterned covers. This can be done at the consumer level, with the manufacturer simply producing lots of various patterned covers to be sold separately from the base phone.

At the factory level, many companies are beginning to add packaging and end-of-line customization. A great example of this is the 2004 introduction by Mars, Inc. of My M & Ms, which allows consumers to order M & Ms with personalized colors, messages and packaging (http://www.mymms.com).

The implication for this type of customization at the manufacturing process level is a design that enables small batches where coating or painting, stamping and packaging takes place. In this example, the basic M & M is supplied to the custom unit that provides the customization offering. Key to the success of this product, according to Mars, is their ink jet printing technology, order management technology, in-bound product (basic M & M) delivery and, probably the biggest enabler, the Internet (Pehanich, 2007). The award winning "My M & M" web site is fun, visually attractive and streamlined, and easy to use.

The costs to produce customized M & Ms, of course, are higher, but the price charged to consumers is also higher and expected. Despite the $11.99 price tag for a 7oz bag, Mars had racked up 325,000 orders by the end of 2006. Mars has since added "My Dove" personalized Dove chocolate, with custom messages printed on the foil wrapper (Pehanich, 2007).

Another slant on customization is where the manufacturer produces various components through mass or JIT manufacturing processes, but assembles those components in various combinations to produce a customized product.

LensCrafters is good example of this. The customer brings in the prescription, picks eyeglass frames from the wide variety available at each outlet, and returns in an hour to pick up their new, custom eyeglasses. To accomplish this, LensCrafters sends the prescription and frame selection to a local lab, which grinds a stock blank lens to match the prescription, mounts the lens into the selected frames, and sends it back to the outlet (Koepfer, 2007). In this case, manufacturing takes place in two separate locations and timeframes. The production of the blank lenses and frames is done ahead of time using no customization processes. The customization takes place at labs that are located near the retail outlets.

Another example of varied components assembled into made-to-order products is Dell's widely known and admired custom computer program. Utilizing a standard base of components, users can "assemble" their own custom computer, which Dell does not "build" until it has the customer's money in hand. Like the M & Ms example, this customization is enabled in no small part by the Internet's ability to interact inexpensively and effectively with the end consumer.

For the process design engineer, the requirements for mass customization differ from that of mass production. One key difference is a shift in focus from cost reduction to throughput. Additionally, utilization of existing process capabilities is important to enable a wider variety of products while keeping additional costs to a minimum. Thus, FME becomes paramount in the process design (Yao, 2007).

Conclusion

The demands of the marketplace and advances by competitors clearly put tremendous pressure on manufacturers to design ever more efficient and flexible processes that can turn around products in ever faster cycles. For the process engineer, clear requirements and sophisticated technology tools for planning are critical to achieving successful manufacturing processes.

The common theme that runs through all of the approaches to manufacturing design is communication, which becomes all the more important with the geographic dispersion of the extended organization and the pressure to keep costs down and speed to market up. Communication technologies, including MES, ERP, collaboration tools and others enable the manufacturing engineer to design a flexible manufacturing environment that can meet the demands of the competitive marketplace.

Terms & Concepts

Cell Manufacturing: The practice of grouping equipment, materials and skilled workers into a microenvironment that facilitates the manufacture of a part or product from start to finish.

Design for Manufacturing (DFM): An approach to product and process design that focuses on designing a product to exploit the existing capabilities of the manufacturing environment.

Flexible Manufacturing Environment (FME): A system where manufacturing and handling equipment, communication, command and control and maintenance are automated and integrated to provide speed and flexibility in responding to changes in new product development and customer demand.

Just In Time Manufacturing (JIT): A manufacturing approach focused on reducing or eliminating inventory by manufacturing to demand and receiving materials from suppliers only as needed. It is often called a "pull" system (responding to demand) as opposed to a traditional "push" system (mass production).

Mass Customization: The practice of customizing products on a mass scale.

Manufacturing Execution System (MES): A communication, command and control system that integrates the equipment on the shop floor to efficiently manage production.

Manufacturing Reuse: The practice of leveraging existing parts, products and processes to produce new products.

Modular Design: A process design approach that looks at the final product as the sum of individual parts, which can be manufactured in parallel.

Product Lifecycle Management System (PLM): A software system that enables product designers to manage the product from its inception all the way to market.

Process Design: The step between product design and production where the equipment, people and processes are planned, acquired and executed.

Process Engineer: An engineer in the manufacturing arm who is responsible for process design. Also called a manufacturing engineer.

Product Design: A blueprint of a product to be manufactured which details what the product will look like, what it will do, how it will work, what components it will be made of, and its required tolerances.

Simultaneous Engineering: The practice of collaborating on a product design with the various domain experts that represent all the links in the product life cycle in order to avoid product development issues and speed time to market.

Systems Integration: The sharing of data between systems to automate and control processes, and to provide integrated information for decision-making.

Target Costing: The practice of designing a product and related manufacturing processes that will produce a product that can be marketed at a predetermined price.

Bibliography

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Bovea, M.D., & Pérez-Belis, V.V. (2012). A taxonomy of ecodesign tools for integrating environmental requirements into the product design process. Journal of Cleaner Production, 20(1), 61-71. Retrieved November 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=66661997&site=ehost-live

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Pehanich, M.(2007). Mass production meets custom manufacturing. FoodProcessing.com. Retrieved February 10, 2008, from http://www.foodprocessing.com/articles/2007/322.html

Schilling, M.A. (1998). Managing the new product development process: Strategic imperatives. Academy of Management Executive, 12(3), 67-81. Retrieved October 11, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=1109051&site=ehost-live

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Suggested Reading

Anderson, D.M. (2004). Design for manufacturability & concurrent engineering. Cambria, California: CIM Press.

Quesada, H., & Gazo, R. (2003). Development of a manufacturing system for construction of school furniture. Forest Products Journal, 53(9), 47-54. Retrieved October 9, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=10880766&site=ehost-live

Shenas, D.G., & Derakhshan, S. (1994). Organizational approaches to the implementation of simultaneous engineering. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 14(10), 30-43. Retrieved January 14, 2008, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=4984537&site=ehost-live