Producibility
- Producibility
(a.k.a., Manufacturability)
- the development-oriented quality factor
representing the degree of the easiness of
manufacturing a
systems or
components
that meet their requirements
As illustrated in the preceding figure, Producibility is part of the following inheritance hierarchy:
- Type: Concrete
- Superclass: Development-Oriented Quality Factor
- Subclasses:
The typical responsibilities of producibility are to:
- Model the degree to which a system, application, or component can be mass produced.
- Support the analysis and specification of
producibility requirements.
- Provide a foundation for evaluating the quality of an architecture.
Producibility is typically decomposed into the following aggregation hierarchy of subfactors:
Producibility is typically measured in terms of the:
- Initial costs to set up manufacturing line
- Unit cost to manufacture
- Required number of manufacturing / assembly steps
- Unit time required to manufacture
Typical mechanisms for improving producibility include:
- Economical materials and components.
- Proven technology.
- Standardized components.
The following guidelines have been found to be useful regarding producibility:
- The initial versions of a system under development typically involve significant labor-intensive handcrafting.
Architectural decisions must support efficient, cost-effective mass production via machines.
- Addressing producibility early during requirements, architecture, and design is the most effective
way to reduce manufacturing costs and improve the quality of manufactured systems.
- Identify the need for innovative manufacturing processes as early as possible
and develop these processes concurrently with the product design.
- Conduct producibility analyses (e.g., trade studies) to ensure that the proposed manufacturing processes
will satisfy the requirements and conform to the architecture and design.
- Minimize part counts.
- Maximize the use of:
- Automated fabrication and assembly processes.
- Standard manufacturing processes and tooling.
- Standardized components.
- CAD/CAM tools.
- Economical materials and components.
- Proven technology.
- Rules-based design.
- Design guidelines.
The Producibility Engineering organization participates early on in the design phase to provide producibility criteria. In addition, the organization develops manufacturing strategies; prepares cost estimates; performs risk analysis; evaluates availability of critical materials/processes; reviews component leadtimes and available substitutes; determines the need for limited production; and conducts production readiness reviews.
Issues maximized by the Producibility Engineering organization include the simplicity of the design; number of potential suppliers; process repeatability and predictability; ease and speed of assembly. Issues minimized by the organization include procurement leadtimes; special production tooling and test systems; skill levels required to manufacture the product; design changes during production; removal of excess material; specification of unrealistic tolerances; and the use of critical materials and processes, unit costs, limited capability items and processes, and proprietary items.
reducing parts count;
The manufacturing representative is responsible for early identification of areas requiring producibility analysis, and contributing to trade studies. Manufacturing engineering is also responsible for the publication of design guidelines. These guidelines communicate manufacturing design criteria to the engineering department. Benefits achieved through the application of guidelines during product design are minimizing design changes, capital investment, manufacturing costs, and tooling costs. The guidelines also increase manufacturing yields and improve quality
