Power of DFMA® to Reduce Manufacturing Operational Costs Revealed in New Survey

Leading manufacturers cite early design
decisions as critical to profitability

Click here to download the full survey roundtable report »

Sixty-eight percent of a survey group, including Fortune 400 companies, measured an increase in production throughput, and 47 percent an increase in profit per unit of factory floor space, after applying Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA®) techniques to their organizations’ supply chains.  A roundtable discussion of these and other results from the questionnaire, conducted by Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., is now available.

Respondents included Dell, Motorola, TRW Automotive, Raytheon, MDS Analytical Technologies, Magna Intier Automotive Seating and other leading North American manufacturers.  Some participants also contributed to a candid roundtable discussion about applying design simplification and early costing to Lean and Six Sigma programs, along with the opportunities missed by industry in measuring financial best practices.

“We achieved a 300 percent increase in profit per square foot of factory floor space by taking a lot of cost and labor out of product using DFMA tools,” said Mike Shipulski, director of engineering, Hypertherm, Inc., a leader in plasma cutting technology.  “Like many others who participated in this survey, we’ve barely begun documenting some of the savings we know we’re achieving.  Everyone in industry recognizes the limitations of using traditional cost accounting methods to identify overhead savings outside the areas of directly applied labor and materials."

Boothroyd Dewhurst President John Gilligan pointed out that there has been a great deal of investment in manufacturing approaches, from Lean to PLM, intended to cut costs.  “It’s critical that people understand how early design decisions profoundly affect the savings achieved by these other efforts,” he said.  “This survey clearly demonstrates that it’s time to open a deeper dialogue about the relationship between design efficiency and total manufacturing returns.”

Click here to download the full survey roundtable report »

SURVEY QUOTES

All along Dell has recognized product-development costs as an issue...But there wasn’t a uniform program or process until DFMA.
Brad Keup, Dell

We’ve increased production by over 10 times and have become a discipline-based organization. As part of that shift, we used DFMA software extensively.
George Valaitis, MDS Analytical Technologies

Using DFMA tools, we achieved a 300 percent increase in profit per square foot of factory floor space.
Mike Shipulski, Hypertherm

This survey is the first step in educating concerned people in the new product development community about additional opportunities for cost reduction.
Gordon Lewis, DaTuM3D

Organizations are making the mistake of looking at overhead costs more from their “realm-of-responsibility" and not from a business perspective.
Paul Zimmermann, Raytheon