Design for Manufacturing

Design for manufacturing is the concurrent consideration of what a product is and how it is made, in order to insure quality, minimize costs and maximize flexibility.

Narrowly defined, DFM focuses on such things as repeatable tolerances (making sure that parts are not so precisely designed that they can't be produced in mass quantities), ease of assembly (e.g. efficient sequencing of "doable" operations), and adaptability to high-speed automation (which may improve both cost and quality at high volumes).

More broadly, given a growing trend towards mass customization (near infinite product variations for "segments of size one"), DFM includes:

(a) Common components and standardized parts across products, enabling more stable forecasting (the pooling effect) and efficient management of shared inventories.

(b) Modular platforms that include base models and a variety of add-ons that can be pre-assembled and managed "virtually".

(c) Postponement of product differentiation until the latest possible stage in the manufacturing process (end of line customization), enabling both a high degree of standardized production and a highly customized product.