Implementing Design For Automatic Assembly : A recommendation on how to implement andapply DFAA at Company Y

Sammanfattning: The need to work with Design for Automatic Assembly (DFAA) has been widely recognizedin the literature. However, the implementation of DFAA is not clearly defined. Therefore, thepurpose of this master thesis is to investigate and contribute with knowledge of how DFAAshould be implemented into an organization, such as Company Y.Several interviews have been conducted to establish a current state analysis, to receive anunderstanding of the current problems at Company Y and how to address them. Abenchmarking study was conducted, where the three companies Ericsson, Company X andScania were interviewed. All three companies have successfully implemented DFA and wereinterviewed with the purpose to obtaining their best practices. The study also included an earlyimplementation of DFAA, where a software based DFA2-method created by Eskilander (2001)was tested on a current product and a new developed design concept at Company Y. Based onthis a recommended workflow of the evaluation could be attained.Based on the empirical gatherings several recommendations of how DFAA should beimplemented into the organization could be made. The study highlights that DFAA should beapplied as early as possible in the product development process. The DFA2-method should beutilized at product level to facilitate concept selection and at part level to make theproducts/modules suited for automatic assembly, before the design is “locked” and before aphysical prototype is created. The departments that should be working with DFAA includesindividuals from production, design quality and purchasing. However, once DFA becomesrooted in the company, more functions in the company’s supply chain will become affected.This means that more functions might need to be included in the work of DFAA. Finally, thestudy includes a decision model, in which the decisions are based on the measurable valuesreceived from the DFA2-method.