Abstract:
This thesis presents
the development
of a
framework for
relating
the reasons
for
problems of producibility
that occur
in
manufacturing
to the sources of
information
available
to designers. Advice
and guidance on
Design for Manufacture
was obtained
from textbooks,
journal
articles and conference papers that sought to improve the
process or report on
design-related difficulties in
manufacturing.
Industrial
experience
was gained
from
a two-year project
in defence
aerospace, researching concurrent
engineering
in the extended enterprise.
Examples
of good practice across a range of
industries
were gained
from interviews
with practitioners, with advice
both from
customers engaged
in design
and
from
manufacturing suppliers.
Further industrial
experience was provided
by two studies of civil aerospace, covering
in-house
and
outsourced manufacture.
Potential
problems were classified and then related to the
sources of
knowledge
available to prevent these problems reaching
the shop
floor.
The detailed
analysis of
findings is
presented and provides a structured approach that
could assist
in
planning concurrent engineering processes, especially communications
and
teamworking. This
would enable potential producibility problems to be
addressed
in
a comprehensive manner so as to
minimise the costs, effort and
delay
associated with
them. It
would also encourage opportunities
for improvement to be
promoted at the
earliest stage
in
product
development,
where they are the most effective.
