Facilitating Design for Manufacturing by Applying Lean Techniques

The following advice applies to design for manufacturing somewhat more than deploying software platforms. I have included a short summary as to applying lean principles to product design in order to reduce cost and time to market. These principles need to be thought out carefully at the beginning of the design phase, not at the NPI (New Product Introduction) phase.

Potential areas for improvement when designing new products include:

1. Reduced part count (group functionality, create modules)
2. Improved design to simplify assembly
3. Reuse and recycling of existing, successful designs
4. Design for smaller batch sizes
5. Design for production equipment with faster changeovers and startups