Design for Manufacturability (DFM)
Seminar and Workshops

 [BTO & Mass Customization]    [ Rationalization & Standardization]   

Design for Manufacturability and Concurrent Engineering.  All seminars and workshops are personally performed by Dr. David M. Anderson, P.E., CMC, one of the world’s foremost authority on the Design for Manufacturability and Concurrent Engineering, having written the most recent book on DFM and Concurrent Engineering.  See verbatim comments from post-seminar surveys below.

    All in-house seminars and workshops are oriented to each company’s product line.  Seminars are two days in length for all relevant people in the company. Four hour Management Overview sessions are also available. Workshops focus in implementation.  The people involved the key people who will be doing the implementation.  Dr. Anderson is also available for keynote speeches for public conferences and in-house events.  Click here for a list of speeches and presentations.

 Tentative baseline list of DFM topics to be covered:

OPENING DISCUSSION ON PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT CULTURE, based on anonymous pre-seminar surveys to be filled out by attendees. Survey topics: Rating company products for DFM; Good and bad products & sub-assemblies; Consequences of bad DFM; Hurdles to good DFM; and Opportunities.

DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURABILITY, based on the experience of 55 in-house DFM seminars , 16 public DFM courses, and Dr. Anderson’s first book, Design for Manufacturability, Optimizing Cost, Quality, and Time-to-Market, and the book he is writing, "Developing Products at Half the Cost." Topics include:

C The importance and benefits of DFM as a tool for good product development; Examples of good DFM practices

C DFM principles and how they can be applied to the company products

C Motivations for engineers to practice DFM

C Low-cost product development; minimizing the cost of parts, labor, and overhead by design. This includes new material on cutting product cost in half from Dr. Anderson's forthcoming book on Half Cost Products.

C Time and cost savings of utilizing off-the-shelf hardware; flexibility benefits

C Design simplification to consolidate structural parts

C Optimizing product design by satisfying all design considerations; Brainstorming

C Do-it-right-the-first-time techniques; How this takes much less time than fixing things later

C Assuring quality and reliability by design; optimizing tolerances; the cumulative effect of part quality and quantity on product quality

ADVANCED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES, based on the graduate course taught in the Management of Technology Program at the University of California at Berkeley.

C The importance of a clear product definition to satisfy the "voice of the customer" (using QFD) and optimizing product architecture, which determines 60% of a products cumulative lifetime cost

C Product line planning, prioritizing, and rationalization, which can raise profits in the current quarter by shifting focus to high-leverage products and eliminating money-draining products. It can also free up valuable resources as product line rationalization eliminates high-overhead ("fire drill") products.

C Real concurrent engineering of a consistent product/production system; The value of early participation of multi-functional team members; How to resolve resource availability constraints; How New Product Development teamwork can resolve issues early, when they are easier to resolve; Feedback mechanisms for gathering input from customers, manufacturing, vendors, and field service

C Minimizing time-to-market and, when applied with mass customization principles, ultra-fast time-to-market, where "new" products are really planned "variations-on-a-theme"

C Decision making based on total cost accounting (ABC) and its effect on product pricing, product line planning, standardization, and product development decisions; Easy implementation approaches using cost-drivers to quickly improve product costing

ACTION PLAN SESSION, where attendees discuss and answer the question, "What should happen next?" After several flip charts have been filled with attendees comments, the attendees vote their preferences. This becomes the basis for the half-day of follow-up consulting on implementation.

Facilitator: Dr. David M. Anderson, P.E., CMC
1-805-924-0100; andersondm@aol.com

    A very high-leverage option is the one-day product-specific workshop, which immediately applies the methodologies of the seminar to a specific product development project. The audience would be the newly formed project team. This is a effective way to get a new product development project "off on the right foot" and help the team optimize product architecture to design in manufacturability, low-cost, modularity, quality, and reliability.

    The agenda would consist of a series of planned brainstorming sessions to encourage the team to explore many ways to implement the principles of the seminar (therefore the workshop should follow the seminar). These exercises themselves would be the start of many actual tasks, which would be continued after the workshop. Experience has shown that product development teams typically under-emphasize and miss opportunities related to the crucial early steps, like defining the product to meet the voice of the customer (QFD), really concurrently engineering the manufacturing processes, and optimizing product architecture, which, as the seminar will show, determines 60% of a products cumulative lifetime cost. As the seminar will also show, doing thorough up-front work is the key to cutting in half the time-to-market (as measured to time to ramped, stable production).

    After one workshop at Hewlett-Packard, two team members asked the team leader if Dr. Anderson had worked for the competition (which he hadn’t) because his agenda was so thorough and useful.

    The timing of product-specific workshops should be just as the team has formed and is about to start. If it is too early, there might not be enough focus, interest, or "critical mass." If it is too late, there may already be too many decisions already "cast in concrete" for creative optimization. Often, these workshops are held the day after the seminar while the material is fresh and enthusiasm is high. Alternatively, workshops can be scheduled whenever a new team is beginning a product development project.

For more about DFM, see http://www.design4manufacturability.com

Dr. David M. Anderson, P.E., CMC
Management Consultant
Build-to-Order Consulting
phone: 1-805-924-0100
fax: 1-805-924-0200
e-mail: andersondm@aol.com

"Exciting"
"Excellent"
"Very good"
"Fun and entertaining"
"Well worth the time and cost"
"Well structured and informative"
"Good anecdotes; kept my attention"
"Very good – nice organization and delivery"
"Every item was worth considering and useful"
"The seminar was very well prepared and quite useful"
"The best seminar I have attended in my 20 years here!"
"Examples and case studies are interesting and educational"
"Good examples to illustrate the topics and facts; very well organized"
"The pre-seminar survey is a great tool - good segue into the seminar"
"Excellent presentation and material. Highly recommend for any company"
"Anecdotal addition to overheads are very valuable in creating a complete understanding of the point"

Comments on the Instructor:

"Knows material"
"Good sense of humor"
"A true believer – good"
"Enthusiastic and entertaining"
"Very good subject knowledge"
"Amazing grasp of the material"
"Knowledgeable and entertaining"
"Very knowledgeable, informative"
"Expert knowledge and experience"
"Responded to questions very well"
"Good relevant industry background"
"Knowledgeable and easy to listen to"
"Very knowledgeable and kept my interest"
"Very good speaker & very knowledgeable"
"Excellent; provoked input; cited examples"
"Interesting references to experiences he has had"
"Very experienced and knowledgeable about the subject"
"He wrote the book, knows the material, and presents it very well"
"Good; Lots of enthusiasm; Understands the content extremely well"
"Very good. Obviously has much experience in the field of DFM as well as other related subjects"

Comments on the Presentation:

"Interesting"
"Well presented"
"Very well spoken."
"Good interactions"
"Excellent presentation"
"Engaging and enjoyable"
"Good presentation skills"
"Good; up-beat, entertaining"
"Well prepared and well delivered"
"Good level of energy in presentation"
"Very good at getting class participation"
"Good – held attention; kept subject matter moving"
"Very well presented - engaging, fast-paced, good sense of humor"
"Very good; Enjoyable; Interesting; Humorous; Excellent presentation"

Comments on Handouts:

"Clear and simple"
"Much better than usual"
"Will be a great reference"
"Detailed and easy to read"
"Saved me from taking notes"
"Good; I hope to refer to this often"
"Necessary for referral at a later date"
"Very useful; Use of complete sentences and use of bullet lists are effective."
"Good for not having to take notes – can focus on presentation ideas and discussion"
"Far, far more reference material, information than the standard PowerPoint presentation."
"Appreciate the condensed, slim handout (instead of the usual telephone book of view-graphs
most course instructors hand out)"

Comments on the Relevance of Dr. Anderson's Seminars

"Very relevant"
"Extremely relevant"
"Very relevant and applicable"
"Very relevant – we need this now!"
"Directly applicable, timely, extremely useful"
"Every part of the seminar had a take-away message"
"I took away several useful guidelines I can use today"
"Very good! Industrial experience and contacts are very relevant"
"Seminar 100% relevant, appropriate, applicable, & useful IMMEDIATELY!"
"Useful from both the conceptual and specific recommendation’s perspective!"
"Can take the knowledge of the last 2 days & start to apply to current practices and processes"
"Most of the material was very relevant and useful. We will put much of it into practice, starting immediately on our next products."

For more information call or e-mail:

Dr. David M. Anderson, P.E., fASME, CMC
www.HalfCostProducts.com
phone: 1-805-924-0100
fax: 1-805-924-0200

e-mail: anderson@build-to-order-consulting.com
 

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