Design IV - DFMA & Cost Management

Cost Management

What if you could easily examine a variety of ways to lower the cost of a specific product?

What if you could adjust the manufacturing process and materials until you are satisfied that you have the best combination?

What if you could then efficiently communicate your results, using real-world cost data, back to the design team?

DFMA software allows you to look critically at an existing design, and uncover opportunities for cost savings--primarily through the reduction of parts in the design. Of course, any time you reduce parts, you also reduce assembly complexity, but those savings are almost always dwarfed by savings in piece part costs.

You’ll personally experience “cost reduction through improved design,” a goal that is routinely met by cost managers who use DFMA software.

You’ll also be able to:

Discuss tradeoffs more objectively and efficiently, presenting the results of your “manufacturing should-cost” for individual part geometries
Receive more realistic cost and cycle time estimates because you’ve been able to provide important details about manufacturing processes, machines, materials, and breakdowns of individual components
Hold suppliers accountable to industry-standard pricing, using the world’s most comprehensive database of materials, processes, and cost information
Help your suppliers reduce their costs by exploring viable alternatives, together
Investigate alternative manufacturing methods, without depending on data from current vendors (who may not even perform the alternative method) or new vendors (who may not quote a realistic price, in the hopes of securing your business)
Use Design for Manufacturing and Design for Assembly tools to consistently and efficiently meet your cost targets

Manufacturing	Executive Management	Design
"You want me to manufacture this design? You're joking, right?" If you find yourself asking this question more often than you'd like, DFMA can help. You and your design engineers can quickly analyse and manipulate different design approaches. The resulting lean design will contain fewer parts and be easier to manufacture. more >	"What will it cost to produce this? How can we reduce the cost without sacrificing quality?" Our tools make it possible for you to obtain answers to these questions that are based on real-life, accurate data. Data that can be used to support productive, objective discussions, improve products while reducing costs, and hold suppliers to reliable "should cost" estimates. more >	You can improve the manufacturability of your design using DFMA software through product simplification. You can explore alternatives in processes and materials, and immediately see the cost impact of your decisions. You can provide factual data to manufacturing and your managers, so you can all make valid business decisions about your product design. more >

You know what the part should cost...

And you know that part is not going to meet the target cost, as it is currently designed. You have to keep working with your vendors and engineering and manufacturing teams to get the part in the ballpark.
You ask for data, and you wait. You finally get the data, you factor it in, then you have to ask for more data from the other parties because the data you just received affects the data you got previously.
This is a tedious, iterative process, dependent on the validity of the quotes you get, the ability (or inability) of the design team to easily investigate alternative approaches, and the subjective, “we’ve always done it this way” rigidity that is built into every design.
What if you could explore the alternatives yourself, using a product that is backed by the world’s most comprehensive database of materials, machines, and processes?
What if you could get a ballpark price without a detailed engineering drawing?
What if you could see, yourself, what the “industry standard” prices were for a given material or process?
DFMA makes all this possible. It takes “the wait” and the subjectivity out of the costing process. It gives you data you can depend on to make valid business decisions—and meet target costs.

Real data. Better decisions. That’s the power of DFMA.

For more details on DFMA, click here.