Using Design for Manufacturability to integrate manufacturing and design has been shown over the years to reduce manufacturing costs and increasing overall revenues. Much research has been provided with a focus on integrating the design of a product and its respective manufacturing processes, but without the consideration of the existing facility capacity. By incorporating the existing capacity, manufacturing cost estimations can more accurately represent true factors such as overtime and material handling.
This thesis describes a methodology to incorporate system capacity in cost estimation. Ideal manufacturing costs, widely used as a standard for production cost estimation, incorporates only material and labor costs. Ideal cost is used as an input to the methodology proposed, and determines true manufacturing costs using the existing
manufacturing system design.
The methodology compares multiple possible designs for a given part and estimates true cost of each design. Along with estimating true cost, the methodology considers three alternatives for implementing each design and the total costs of each: minimizing material handling costs by minimizing intracellular movement; minimizing overtime costs by utilizing all machine capacity, and minimizing total costs by purchasing additional machines to meet demand.
The methodology will provide an estimate of the true cost for each design being evaluated for each alternative presented. This will allow the user to not only get a more accurate representation of manufacturing costs, but also allow for cost analysis of multiple implementation alternatives for versatility. A mathematical model which maximizes facility profit by using the methodology proposed will be created and evaluated. The model will show how the methodology presented can be used in alternative scenarios in manufacturing settings.