Jurnal Mechanical, Volume 1, Nomor 1,Maret 2010

Redesign of Pneumatic Piston Using Design for Manufacture

and Assembly (DFMA) Technique

Mustofa
5

Abstract

Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) technique has been utilized intensively in
10 industry for many years in order to increase the quality, decrease the cost and shorten the cycle
time of a product. This paper is a detail application of the technique in the pneumatic piston
product. The redesign effeciency of the product increases significantly from 25.9% to 67.45%.

Keywords: manufacture and assembly

15

1. Introduction This software is used to help the design in

almost all the industrail fields including circuit
Initially, the tradition manufacturing 55 boargds (Boothroyd and Knight, 1993), with
20 technique had utilized for many years. The manual assembly, with robotic assembly and
techinque is in where sketches of the parts with machining. The University of South
completed on the CAD (Computer Aided Australia in the school of Advanced
Design) workstation, the design engineers Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering
create the detail drawing and assembly 60 has been utilized the software for
25 engineer create the assembly plan. The undergraduate and postgraduate students
workshop makes prototype and gives the lessons. Professor Kazem Abhary is the person
feedback, which accords to the sample test, to in charge to consult how to procure and use the
the design engineers and assembly engineers DFMA software. The following is a detail of
who will redesign the product, the assembly 65 the motor drive how the technology works.
30 and the manufacturing process. The same cycle
repeats again and again until arriving at 2. ³Golden Criteria´ for Retaining a
competitive design. This process makes the Component in an Assembly
design and manufacturing been performed
independently. The designer designs a product 70 To start applying the DFMA for
35 DQG µWRVVHV LW RYHU WKH ZDO¶ WR WKH PDQXIDFWXUHU assembly a product, pickp up the component
to produce (Boothroyd, Knight and Dewhurst, that has many attached parts and identify
2002). The design engineer and the invisible sequences. In other words, each part
manufacturingengineer works individually and must be examined as it is added to the product
what results is that the final products have 75 during assembly.
40 many disadvantages such as poor a) During operation of the product, does the
characteristics in manufatcuring, assembly, part move relative to all other parts already
maintenance; long developing period; high assembled? Only gross motion should be
cost; and unguaranteed quality. considered-small motions that can be
Currently, the technique has been 80 accomodated by integral elastic elements,
45 changed by founder father Dr. Geoffrey for example, are not sufficient for a
Boothroyd and Dr. Peter Dewhurstn who done positive answer.
the research in this new technology at the b) About the material, must be part be of a
EHJLQQLQJ LQ WKH HDUO\ ¶V $FWXDlly, the different material than or be isolated from
µ')0$¶ LV D WUDGHPDUN RI WKHLU FRPSDQ\ 7KH 85 all other parts already assembled? Only
50 created and developed the DFMA concept fundamental reasons concerned with
which is used in developing the products of material properties are acceptable.
their company using DFMA software system.
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 Jurnal Mechanical, Volume 1, Nomor 1,Maret 2010

c) Must the part be separated from all other

parts already assembled because otherwise
necessary assembled or disassembly of
other separate parts would be impossible.
5 Other hints to apply the DFMA are:
a) Design or redesign other product starts
with concepted design illustrate it with
exploded view of the product. Exploded
view is the order of disassembly product as
10 dipicted in Figure 1.
b) Do not miss the assembly lines in the
exploded view.
c) The 3 golden criterias are not applied for
the first component. 40
15 Boothroyd et al (2002) redesigned a motor
drive and succeded to increase its efficiency by Figure 2. Redesign of motor drive assembly
18.5% as follow steps. following design for assembly (DFA) analysis.
In the Figure 1, there are 14 parts that
must be analysed associating with the criterias 45
20 and the hints. From the Table 1 shown that
totals assembly time is 160s with a theoritical
minimum time obtained by multiplying the
theoritical minimum part count of four by a
minimum time of assembly for each part of 3s. 50
25 It should be noted that for this analysis
standard subassemblies are counted as parts.
Thus,
4 x3
Design Efficiency 7.5% (1) 55
160
To improve the design (redesign),
30 bushes are integral to the base, snap-on plastic
cover replaces standoff, cover, plastic bush, six
screws. Using pilot point screw to fix the base,
60
which redesign to be self-alignment as in
Figure 2.

65

70

75
35
Figure 1. Original design of motor drive
assembly (dimensions in inches).
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 Jurnal Mechanical, Volume 1, Nomor 1,Maret 2010

Table 1. Results of original Design for Assembly (DFA) Analysis for the Motor Drive Assembly.
Item Number Theoritical Assembly Time Assembly Cost
Part Count (s) (cent)*)
Base 1 1 3.5 2.9
Bush 2 0 12.3 10.2
Motor 1 1 9.5 7.9
Subassembly
Motor Screw 2 0 21.0 17.5
Sensor 1 1 8.5 7.1
Subassembly
Setscrew 1 0 10.6 8.8
Standoff 2 0 16.0 13.3
End plate 1 1 8.4 7.0
End-plate screw 2 0 16.6 13.4
Plastic bush 1 0 3.5 2.9
Thread lead - - 5.0 4.2
Reorient - - 4.5 3.8
Cover 1 0 9.4 7.9
Cover Screw 4 0 34.2 26.0
TOTALS 19 4 160.0 133.0

5 Table 2. Results of Redesign for Assembly (DFA) Analysis for the Motor Drive Assembly.
Theoritical Assembly Time Assembly Cost
Item Number
Part Count (s) (cent)*)
Base 1 1 3.5 2.9
Motor 1 1 4.5 3.8
Subassembly
Motor Screw 2 0 12.0 10.0
Sensor 1 1 8.5 7.1
Subassembly
Setscrew 1 0 8.5 7.1
Thread leads - - 5.0 4.2
Plastic cover 1 1 4.0 3.3
TOTALS 6 4 46.0 38.4
*)For a labor rate of $30/h

10

15

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 Jurnal Mechanical, Volume 1, Nomor 1,Maret 2010

4 x3
Design Efficiency 26% (2)
46.0

Clearly, the efficiency increases by 18.5% with

application of the technique. In terms of saving
5 from assembly time reduction and parts
reduction can be seen in the following table.

Table 3. Original and redesign cost form

assembly time and parts.
Original Design Redesign
Item Cost, Item Cost,
$ $
Base 12.91 Base 13.43
(Aluminium) (nylon)
Bush (2) 2.40 Base 13.43
(nylon)
Motor 0.20 Motor 0.20
Screw(2) Screw(2)
Setscrew 0.10 Setscrew 0.10
Standoff(2) 5.19
Endplate 5.89
End-plate 0.20 Figure 3. Pneumatic piston (a) original design;
Screw a (b) redesign. b
Plastic bush 0.10
Cover 8.05 Plastic 8.00
Cover
30 From the figure as can be seen that the
(include number of components are reduced from 6
tooling) components to 4 components in which piston
Cover screw 0.40 stop is eliminated, screw and cover are
(4) combined to be screw cover in plastic material.
Totals 35.44 21.73 35 To see how this technique works, look at the
10 table 4. Where,
Thus, the total saving = saving from assembly 4 x3
Design Efficiency 25.9% (3)
time reduction + saving from parts reduction = 46.25
$0.95 + $13.71 = $14.66 While, redesign efficiency becomes
4 x3
15 Case Study: Pneumatic Piston Design Efficiency 67.45% (4)
With the same above procedures, 17.79
pneumatic piston can be redesigned. First, 40 as shown in the Table 5.
draw the exploded view of a pneumatic piston
subassembly is given in the Figure 3. The
20 number of components are redundant,
SDUWLFXODUO\ VFUHZV LQ ZKLFK WKH\ DUH µHQHP\¶
of an engineer and not easy to align. Therefore, 45
by applying DFMA rules for retaining
component, redesign product can be obtained
25 (Figure 3b).

50

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 Jurnal Mechanical, Volume 1, Nomor 1,Maret 2010

Table 4. Pneumatic piston DFMA analysis (results of original design for manual assembly).

Retaining Criterion
Part T D+ Handling Handling Insertion Insertion Assembly
Name of parts
number Parts Move Material Separate
D E code time (s) code time (s) time (s)
E

Y/N Y/N Y/N

Main block
(plastic) 6 1 - - - 360 360 720 30 1,95 0 1,5 3,45

Piston (aluminium) 5 1 Y - - 360 0 360 10 1,5 20 5,5 7

Piston stop (plastic) 4 1 N N Y 360 0 360 10 1,5 0 1,5 3

Spring (steel) 3 1 Y - 180 0 180 5 1,84 0 1,5 3,34

Cover (steel) 2 1 N N N 180 360 540 23 2,36 9 7,5 9,86

Screw (steel) 1 2 N N N 360 0 360 11 1,8 39 8 9.8x2=19.6

Totals 7 46,25

Table 5 Pneumatic piston DFMA analysis (results of redesign for manual assembly)
Retaining Criterion Handl Inser
Handl Inser
Part Quantity ing tion Assembly
Name of parts Move Material Separate D E D+E ing tion
number of parts time time time (s)
code code
Y/N Y/N Y/N (s) (s)
Main block
(plastic) 6 1 - - - 360 360 720 30 1,95 00 1,5 3,45
Piston
(aluminium) 5 1 Yes - - 360 0 360 10 1,5 20 5,5 7
Spring (steel) 3 1 Yes - 180 0 180 5 1,84 00 1,5 3,34
Piston
stop+cover+scr
ews=Screw 1 1 No No Yes 360 0 360 10 1,5 01 2,5 4

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 Jurnal Mechanical, Volume 1, Nomor 1,Maret 2010

cover (plastic)

Totals 4 17.79

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 Jurnal Mechanical, Volume 1, Nomor 1,Maret 2010

From the Figure 3 shown as well that

screws, cover and piston stop are combined
into one single screw cover. It leads to reduce
assembly times. In addition to that, cover
5 material has been changed from steel to plastic. 55
Thus, the part can be cheaper to manufacture
and easily to assembly.

10 3. Conclusions 60
It is shown the power of DFMA to
redesign the product in order to increase its
efficiency leading to competitiveness product
globally. The piston effeciency rises by 41.5%
15 that is almost double compare with the original 65
design. This is manual redesign technique.
Later, it will show how to use the automatic
technique using DFMA software to compare
with manual ones.
20 70

References

[1] Boothroyd, G., Knight, W., Dewhurst, P.,

25 2002, Product Design For manufacture and 75
Assembly, 2nd Edition, Marcel Dekker,
Inc.
[2] Boothroyd, G. and Knight, W., 1993,
Manufacturing À La Carte: Efficiency:
30 Design for Assembly, IEEE Spectrum. pp. 80
51-53.
[3] Causey, G., 1999, Elements of agility in
manufacturing, Ph.D. Dissertation
Mechanical Engineering, CWRU.
35 [4] Mustofa, Naharuddin, 2009, Redesign of 85
Emergency Lamp Using Design for
Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA)
Technique, Media Eksakta, Jurnal
Matematika dan Sains, Vol. 5, No.1, Hal.
40 001-004. 90

45 95

50 100

66