Abstract
The increase in global competition has led to immense interest in the development of new ways of increasing productivity and quality. It is a well-known fact that the costs of manufactured products are largely determined at the design stage. It is important to consider manufacturability early in the design. Complexity reduction is at the heart of Total Life Cycle Design. To be able to cut life cycle costs at an early stage the following DFMA-tools have been developed: Design for Manufacture (DFM), Design for Assembly (DFA), Design for Service (DFS) and Design for Environment (DFE). This paper takes a total life cycle approach towards product design, focusing upon complexity reduction and the tools of DFM, DFA, DFS and DFE. The application of these tools is reviewed and reference is made to their industrial application through the example of an electronics company, which adopted an integrated approach towards the application of these tools within their product development process.