4) Order-to-Delivery Cycle (Group: Design)
There is no old answer
The order-to-delivery cycle
typically involves three major activities: order fulfillment, production, and
service. Order fulfillment is the sales arm of the business, responsible for
bringing in orders for products and forecasting production requirements.
Production converts sales orders into products. It encompasses all of the personnel,
operations, processes, tooling, and equipment involved in the day-to-day
manufacture of products including procurement, raw material and supplied
component receiving and inspection, part manufacture, assembly, testing, and
distribution of manufactured products. Service provides product-related
maintenance, repair, disposal services, and support to the customer.
All of these activities
influence design and manufacturing practices. For example, design for service
and design for disassembly are important strategies in many companies. As
another example, consider companies that sell specialized or customized
products and services. These companies must often "quote" the job
first, then manufacture and deliver the product or equipment after the order
has been received. The time this process takes can contribute significantly to manufacturing
lead time as well as strongly influencing customer satisfaction. Modular
designs or designs that allow customization at the end of the production line
help reduce order-to-delivery time for many of these types of customized
products and equipment.
Marketing, manufacturing,
and design strategy can also play an important role. Consider a company whose
marketing strategy is to sell personal computers that are customized according
to specifications provided by the customer via a phone order. Such a marketing
strategy needs to be supported by a manufacturing strategy that facilitates
easy manufacture and delivery of a customized product, together with a design
strategy that makes the product easy to customize at remote distribution sites.
Another approach is to use
computerization to take time out of the ordering process. One vision is that of
a sales representative in the office of a customer with, for example, his or
her portable computer having all product and pricing data available on disk, so
that a complete purchase order or release can be negotiated on the spot and
then inserted into the plant's production schedule by a modem and confirmed
before the representative leaves the office.
An important measure of
production efficiency and effectiveness is manufacturing lead time (MLT) or the
time required to process the product through the plant. Manufacturing lead time
is directly related to manufacturing cost and customer satisfaction. A short
MLT implies less manufacturing time and labor and therefore lower manufacturing
cost. Also, the shorter the MLT, the sooner the product can be sold and the
company reimbursed for its investment in raw material and labor. Most
importantly, a short MLT means the customer gets the product when needed.
(Materials Selection and Design was published in
1997 as Volume 20 of ASM Handbook, p.
1580)
5) Process-Driven Design (Group: Design)
There is no old answer
In process-driven design, a
method of assembly or other manufacturing process plan is developed prior to
developing the product design. This plan is then used to guide the product
design thereby ensuring a coordinated product and process that results in an
optimization of the overall manufacturing system. Process-driven design is
based on the recognition that product design decisions often inadvertently limit
the manufacturing options available for use in production of the product.
Process-driven design methods have been successfully applied in many different
industries. For example, many of the modern innovative manufacturing and
assembly methods now commonly used in the automotive,
airplane, and farm machinery industries can be traced to process-driven design
practices.
(Materials Selection and Design was published in
1997 as Volume 20 of ASM Handbook, p.
1589)
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