Assembly Planbook - June 2008 - (Page 47)

cost out of the design without affecting its integrity, and the software helps us determine how to do that,” says Matt Saxton, cost management specialist at Deere. “We also used the DFMA process to elicit cost-reduction suggestions from suppliers and get them engaged with our design team. We have a system that rewards suppliers for being costconscious. A lot of times they’ll tell us how we can reduce their costs by changing something in our design.” The redesign focused on three areas of the deck. Shorten the deck sheet. The landing deck sheet is a section of perforated metal flooring. Shortening the deck sheet meant Deere could get lengths of steel flooring more economically from a standard-size sheet. “We went to a sheet size that was less expensive to begin with and saved dollars per pound,” says Saxton. “Plus we utilized the sheet much better. Better raw material cost and less scrap represent a two-for-one benefit.” Changing the size of the deck sheet reduced raw material cost by 60 percent. Strengthen structural support. The new design uses rectangular steel tube for internal structural support instead of fabricated C-channel. This adds structural rigidity and reduces both weight and cost. “Weight reduction was a good customer benefit,” says Saxton. “Less effort is required to pull the landing out from the side of the combine, and a lighter machine uses less energy during operation. Reducing weight helps manage the use of engine horsepower.” Replace the ladder rails. Using round tubing instead of square for the ladder rails increased structural support, and reduced manufacturing cost. In addition, paring 3 millimeters from the tube length allowed cutting three sections of tube from a standard 20-foot length, further reducing material cost. The cost harvest paid off for Deere. The original 17-part ladder is now a streamlined 10-part assembly, and the engineering team beat its original target cost by 7 percent for the entire landing deck. Saxton is gearing up for more cost-reduction projects. “I just saw a Redesigning this oscilloscope top box with slots, snap-fits and self-clinching inserts enabled LeCroy to eliminate more than half of the fasteners from the assembly, and reduce assembly time significantly. request for a cost review related to the 2008 production timeframe,” he says. “We’ll keep using DFMA to ask the right questions.” Inside the Box LeCroy Corp. (Chestnut Ridge, NY) designs and manufactures oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers and other equipment for customers in the computer and semiconductor, data storage, and automotive industries. An aggressive growth strategy has earned LeCroy a 50 percent revenue increase over the past five years—to $165 million. Roughly three-quarters of that revenue has come from the sale of oscilloscopes, electronic test equipment used for viewing and analyzing complex electronic signals. The market for this type of high-end equipment is extremely competitive, so LeCroy’s business strategy includes near-continuous new product development and a firm commitment to reducing product costs. Unfortunately, many of those product costs are difficult to reduce. Oscilloscopes have many components that require manual assembly, and they are a comparatively low-volume product, so there is no way to achieve savings by scalar production increases. “Other industries have costcutting opportunities that simply are not an option for us,” says Pamela Wiseman, vice president of operations. That leaves product redesign as the best option. On a recent redesign, the engineering team used DFMA to eliminate two-thirds of the parts, cables and fasteners from the top box of its popular Wave series oscilloscope. Central to this effort was redesign of the top box, which consisted of 194 parts, including a sheet metal chassis that was riveted together. In addition to reducing parts count, the team was charged with making the scope easier to service. The design team, made up of mechanical engineers, manufacturing engineers and a lead project engineer, brought a great deal of varied experience to the project. One member, senior manufacturing engineer Toni Inserra, served as a LeCroy senior service technician for six years before moving into manufacturing. “We had other input from the field,” Inserra says, “and I was able to bring my own maintenance experiences to the design table. That’s important when you’re trying to improve ease of service.” “The original design for the oscilloscope top box was durable, but it had www.assemblymag.com June 2008 / ASSE M B LY 47 http://www.assemblymag.com

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Assembly Planbook - June 2008 Contents Editorial Bonding Lines Quality in Assembly Assembly Lines Assembly in Action Fastening or Bonding? Loose Lips Sink Assembly Systems DFMA Cuts Downstream Costs Robots Lend a Hand Products Advertisers Index Classified Leading Lean

Assembly Planbook - June 2008

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