HOW TO
BUILD ANY PRODUCT IN A FAMILY ON-DEMAND
and
reduce cost down to1/10 of these costs:
The forthcoming 2019 Second Edition of the author's DFM
Book will show how building families of products on-demand can cut this
much overhead costs:
Cut material
overhead cost to1/10
for standard parts based on surveys of Procurement
managers:
See opening page of Chapter 5:
“Standardization” in the definitive book on Design
for Manufacturability
Cut
raw materials inventory
down to /10 cost using:
Spontaneous Supply Chains,” Chapter 7,
in the 512
page BTO book which starts with a 60 page Summary
Cut work-in-process (WIP)
inventory Cost to 1/10 the usual cost , which can cost more than profits! See: “Design for Lean and Build-to-Order:” Chapter 4 in
the author's DFM book, now translated into Chinese
Cut finished goods
inventory Cost /10 of Mass
Production cost
by building all platform products to-Order "on-demand"
without needing forecasted inventory. : See:
http://www.build-to-order-consulting.com/ or
"Build-to-Order & Mass Customization,"
the most thorough book written on Build-to-Order
* See Overview of Inventory Reduction article at:
http://www.build-to-order-consulting.com/inventory_reduction.htm
With family
products savings 10 times these overhead costs, those family products
could come close to making the case they not be charged any overhead
charges at all!
When the rest of the products can be build to-order in
families,
then a
total-cost based cost system will automatically assign all products
proportionally less overhead cost.
HOW TO DESIGN AND BUILD PLATFORMS OF PRODUCT
FAMILIES
A "platform" is not just adjacent pages in a
catalog or on web-site
Product families must be based on all four of the
following criteria:
1)
customer/marketing feasibility,
with the focus on profitability
over completeness
2)
operational flexibility,
so any variation can be built without delays, onerous setup costs,
or inventory carrying costs, ideally built on-demand
3)
supply chain responsiveness,
so family variations will not have to wait for parts and materials
to be delivered, and distributed, and
4)
design versatility
to enable the above
IMPLEMENTATION APPROACH
a. HOW TO BUILD PRODUCT FAMILIES FLEXIBLY
FLEXIBLE MANUAL ASSEMBLY
B. SPONTANEOUS SUPPLY CHAINS
Note that when asked to deliver parts “on demand,” suppliers
will probably try to ship from their inventory
C. DESIGNING PRODUCT FAMILIES
So if the existing production operations and supply chains can
not quickly
and cost-effectively build product families, the product families and their
processes
need to be concurrently engineered to make the product family strategy viable.
For more on BTO&MC principles see the
book, Build-to-Order & Mass Customization
For an illustrated example of
cellular manufacture for turned parts, go the bottom of the page at
the
Flexible Manufacturing page
at http://www.build-to-order-consulting.com/flex-mfg.htm
Right-sized machine can
form complete mini-lines, in which no changeovers
are needed. The economics are
different with versatility and setup elimination
stressed over utilization.
POSTPONEMENT
Postponement is a mass
customization technique that is applicable for certain products
that can have their variety postponed until just before
shipping. The factory
builds basic
“vanilla” platforms and quickly adds “flavors”
upon receipt of
order.
Postponement is most
suitable for product architecture that has a major platform part
can be built without variation and then customized by various
adjustments, configurations, or bolt-on or plug-in modules.
Extending Product Families with Mass Customization
Mass Customization
is the ability to quickly and efficiently build-to-order customized products.
It uses all the techniques presented so far
for the build-to-order of standard products and extends that to custom products.
These products can be customized for individual
customers or niche markets, such as versions optimized for certain market
segments, industries, regions, or countries.
Synergies of Mass Customization and Product Families
There is a natural synergy between
product families built to-order and mass customization.
They share the same flexible operations and spontaneous supply
chain.
Product families and mass customization operations are
equally efficient and very complementary,
Adding mass customization to a product
family strategy can push the combined volume over the
threshold that may be necessary to justify these implementations.
These are the general principles. Pass
around this article or URL to educate and stimulate interest
In customized seminars and
webinars, these principles are presented in the context of your
company amongst designers implementers, and managers, who can all discuss
feasibility and, at least, explore possible implementation steps
In customized workshops, brainstorming sessions
apply these methodologies to your most relevant products, operations, and supply
chains.
Call or email
about how these principles can apply to your company:
copyright ©
2021 by
David M. Anderson
Book-length web-site on Half Cost Products:
www.HalfCostProducts.com
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