ABSTRACT

During the time that the product requirements analysis work and related system concept work is being accomplished, manufacturing engineering should be funded to participate in that work as well as identify requirements for the manufacturing process that are consistent with the make-buy decisions. During the product preliminary and detail design processes, manufacturing should be interacting with the design teams to encourage recognition of product requirements driven by manufacturing needs as well as evaluating maturing design features for their producibility aspects offering critical input on the appropriate teams in an attempt to bring about an optimum solution from a product and process perspective. Actually, the manufacturing people may not have such a high viewpoint and may only be focused on their anticipated manufacturing difculties. That is not to denigrate the manufacturing folks because it is what all specialists are doing in the give and take of the system development process.