Unit – 3- Design of Product, Process and Work

Systems
 PRODUCT DESIGN
Designing new products and getting them to the market is the challenge facing
manufacturers in industries as diverse as computer chips and potato chips.

Product Design is concerned with form and function of a product. It refers to the
arrangement of elements or parts that collectively form a product.

 Form design is concerned with the appearance, and aesthetic considerations and
also the size, volume and weight of the product which are secondary to the
performance of the product.
 Functional design is concerned with the first and foremost requirement of good
product i.e., the product should effectively perform the function for which it is
developed.

Process Design is concerned with the overall sequence of operations required to

achieve the design specification of the product.

Production Design is concept of designing products from the point of view of

producibility.

IMPORTANCE OF PRODUCT DESIGN

Production or Operations strategy is directly influenced by product design for the
following reasons

1. A good product design can improve the marketability of a product by making it

easier to operate or use, upgrading its quality, improving its appearance, and/or
reducing manufacturing costs.
2. An excellent design provides competitive advantage to the manufacturer, by
ensuring appropriate quality, reasonable cost and the expected product features.
WHAT DOES PRODUCT DESIGN DO?
The activities and responsibilities of product design include the following:

1. Translating customer need and wants into product and service requirements
(marketing)
2. Refining existing product (marketing)
3. Developing new products (marketing, product design and production)
4. Formulating quality goals (quality assurance, production)
5. Formulating cost targets (accounting)
6. Constructing and testing prototype (marketing, production)
7. Documenting specification (product design)

OBJECTIVES OF PRODUCT DESIGN

1. The overall objective is profit generation in the long run.
2. To achieve the desired product quality.
3. To reduce the development time and cost to the minimum.
4. To reduce the cost of the product.
5. To ensure producibility or manufacturability (design for manufacturing and
assembly).

FACTORS INFLUENCING PRODUCT DESIGN

1. Customer requirements
2. Convenience of the operator or user
3. Tradeoff between function and form
4. Types of materials used
5. Work methods and equipments
6. Cost/Price ratio
7. Product quality
8. Process capability
9. Effect on existing products
 10. Packaging

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD PRODUCT DESIGN

There is often a trade-off between good design and price: the better the design, the
higher the price. The essential characteristics of a good product design are listed as
follows:

1. FUNCTION OR PERFORMANCE: The product must be designed in such a way

that it optimally performs the main task or function for which it is purchased by a
buyer. In other words, the product must satisfy the needs and wants of the
consumer.
Example: The main function of an Air Conditioner (AC) is to provide quick
cooling of a room. So, AC must be designed in such a way that it can cool a
room as fast as technologically possible. If it doesn't meet basic expectations, the
consumers won't buy it.
2. APPEARANCE OR AESTHETICS: Aesthetics must be kept in mind while
designing a product. It refers to, how the product looks, feels, sounds, tastes or
smells. That is, the product must look, feel, sound, taste or smell very good. It
must be attractive, compact and convenient to use. Its packaging must also be
made graphically appealing and colorful. If this aspect is not considered, product
will fail in the market. This factor is very important, especially in case a product is
designed for and targeted to the young generation that is emerging with a
modern mindset and current trends.
3. RELIABILITY: Reliability means dependability on a product. Consumers prefer to
purchase and use often those products which perform their main function or task
optimally for a longer period without any annoying malfunctions, breakdowns or
failures. In short, a product must perform quite well and give trouble-free service
for a decent amount of time. It must not need constant repairs and/or frequent
maintenances. It is so, since repairs often turn costly and are very time
consuming. Reliability is crucial for consumer durables and office equipments. A
reliable product gains consumers' trust, loyalty and this creates its goodwill in the
 competitive market. Therefore, reliability is an important factor to be kept in mind
while designing a product.
4. MAINTAINABILITY: Maintainability is the degree to which a product allows safe,
quick and easy replacement of its component parts. It is embodied in the design
of the product. A lack of maintainability will be evident as high product
maintenance costs, long out-of service times, and possible injuries to
maintenance engineers.
5. Availability
6. Producibility
7. Simplification
8. Standardization
9. Specification
10. Safety

APPROACHES TO PRODUCT DESIGN

1. Designing for the customer
 Industrial design
 Voice of the customer
 Quality function deployment (QFD)
2. Designing for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA)
 “Over-the-wall approach”
 Concurrent engineering
 Design for Manufacturing (DFM) Design for Assembly (DFA)
3. Designing for ease of production (or for producibility or manufacturability)
 Specification
 Standardization
 Simplification
4. Designing for Quality
 Designing for robustness (or robust design)
 Designing for production
 Modular design
  Designing for automation
 Designing for reliability
5. Designing for Ergonomics
6. Designing for environmental protection
7. Designing for recycling
8. Designing of disassembly (DFD)
9. Designing for mass customization
 Delayed differentiation and modular designs are two tactics used to make
mass customization possible.
10. Other issues in product design are (a) Computer aided design (CAD), (b) Value
engineering or value analysis which
 Computer aided design: Use of computer graphics for designing the
product helps to generate a number of alternative designs and identify the
best alternative which meets the designer‟s criteria.
 Value engineering/Value analysis: Concerned with the improvement of
design and specifications at various stages of product planning and
development.

ISSUES IN PRODUCT DESIGN

1. Legal Issues:
a. Product liability
b. Intellectual Property
c. Uniform commercial code
2. Ethical issues:
a. Assessing the impact of the design on consumers
b. Protection of IP
c. Privacy
d. Exposure to the undesirable
e. Advertising of designs
f. Guinea pig/human
3. Environmental issues:
 a. Greenhouse effect or global warming
b. Ozone layer depletion
c. Tropical deforestation
d. Waste
e. Pollution
f. Resource utilization

 PROCESS DESIGN
The operation function essentially a transformation process that accepts the inputs, and
gives the outputs after adding value to these inputs. After the final design of the product
has been approved and released for production, the production planning and control
department takes the responsibility of process planning and process design for
converting the product design into a tangible product.

A process is a sequence of activities that is intended to achieve some result, for

example, to create added value for the customers.

TYPES OF PROCESSES
  CONVERSION PROCESS
The process of changing inputs of labour, capital, land and management into outputs of
goods and services. Conversion Process Random Fluctuations Unplanned or
uncontrollable environmental influences (strikes, floods, etc.) that cause planned and
actual output to differ.

 MANUFACTURING PROCESS
Manufacturing processes are applicable in all areas of our lives, so much that we often
don't realize or think about it. Manufacturing process are the primary processes and can
be grouped under three basic categories as shown in the figure. The objective of each
process is to change the shape or physical characteristics of the raw materials.

The manufacturing process used in engineering industries basically perform one or

more of the following functions:

 Change the physical properties of the work material

 Change the shape and size of the work piece.
 Produce desired dimensional accuracy and surface finish.

Based on the nature of work involved these processes may be divided into following
categories:

1. FORMING PROCESS: Forming is a broad term covering many different

manufacturing processes. In general, you may think of forming as any process that
changes the shape of a given raw stock without changing its phase (i.e. without
melting it).
a. Casting is a manufacturing process by which a liquid material is usually
poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and
then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which
is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process.
 The various casting methods are sand casting, shell moulding, gravity die
casting, pressure die casting, etc.
b. Forging is a manufacturing process in which a piece of (usually hot) metal is
formed into the desired shape by hammering, pressing, rolling, squeezing,
and other such operations in one or more forging equipment.

c. Extrusion is a process in which metal is

forced, or squeezed, out through a hole
(die). The process is similar to
squeezing toothpaste out of the tube.
This process is used mostly for metals
that are ductile, including copper, steel,
aluminum and magnesium; it is also
used for some plastics and rubbers.
 Common examples of parts made by extrusion are the aluminum frames of
white-boards, door- and window-frames, etc.
d. Stamping is a Metal forming method in which a sheet is shaped by bending,
folding, pressing, stretching, and/or twisting, usually with pressing machinery.

e. Both embossing and coining are cold press working operations in which the
starting material is in the form of a blank sheet metal. The aim of the both
operations is to force impression into the surface or surfaces of the metal.
However, whereas “embossing” is a forming operation, “coining” is a pressing
operation.

f. Metal spinning, also known as spin forming or spinning or metal turning most
commonly, is a metalworking process by which a disc or tube of metal is
rotated at high speed and formed into an axially symmetric part. Spinning can
be performed by hand or by a CNC lathe.
2. Machining Process: Machining process removes the metal from the work piece
during the cutting operation performed by the cutting tool. Its prime function is to
alter the shape of the work piece or raw material, provide proper surface finish and
dimensional accuracy. Some of the machining process are as follows:
a. Turning: in turning operation, the work piece is held in the lathe and rotated
while the cutting tool or cutter removes the metal from the work piece.

b. Drilling and boring: In drilling operation, a hole is produced on the work piece
by forcing a rotating cutter known as drill through the work piece. In boring
operation, an existing drilled hole is enlarged by using a cutter known as
boring bit. Reaming is the finishing of a drilled hole to an accurate size by
using a fluted tool called a reamer.
c. Milling: Milling operation removes metal by feeding the work piece against a
rotating multi-point cutting tool called milling cutter.
d. Grinding: Grinding process refers to the abrading or wearing away by friction
of a material. It is accomplished by forcing the work piece against a rotating
grinding wheel made of abrasive material.
e. Shaping and Planing: In shaping and planing, a plane surfaces are produced
with the use of single point cutting tools. Work pieces, castings of forgings of
smaller sizes are machined by shaping process where as planing process is
used for machining work pieces, casting or forgings of larger size.

f. Electro-discharge machining (EDM): It is a „Chip-less‟ process using electrical

energy for metal removal. The operation involves producing a spark between
the work piece and the tool across a gap between them. The work piece melt
at the contract point of the spark and the molten metal is removed by the die-
electric which also cools the work piece and the tool.
 g. Electrochemical Machining (ECM): This is also a „chip-less‟ process, but it
differs from EDM in that chemical energy combines with electrical energy to
do the cutting operations
3. Assembly Processes: This process involve joining of component or piece parts to
produce a single component. Some of the assembly processes are welding, brazing,
soldering, riveting, fastening by bolts and nuts and assemble using adhesives.
a. Welding Processes: In welding process, two pieces of metal are joined into a
single piece by fusion due to heat or combination of heat and pressure.
Various types of welding processes are gas welding, arc welding, resistance
welding (spot welding and seam welding), plasma arc welding, electron beam
welding and laser welding.
b. Brazing: Brazing is a metal joining process used for joining nonferrous alloys
(either similar or dissimilar metals). The brazing alloy melts at a lower
temperature than the melting point of braze metals to be joined and fills the
joint between the base metals by capillary actions and then solidifies on
cooling.
c. Soldering: Soldering process is similar to brazing except that the soldering
alloy is different from brazing alloy and melts at a lower temperature as
compared to brazing alloy. The lead-tin base solder alloys melt and flow
throughout the solder joint by the heat of the joint itself.
d. Riveting: It is the process of placing the rivet in a hole drilled through the
overlapping surfaces of the work pieces to be joined and upsetting the head
of the rivet using a riveting tool.
e. Fastening by bolts and nuts: When work pieces or parts of an assembly must
be disassembled and reassembled the best method of assembly is by
fastening using screws, bolts and nuts.
f. Assembly using adhesives: Adhesives are used to bond almost all materials
such as wood, rubber, plastics and metals.
PROCESS PLANNING
PROCESS PLANNING is concerned with planning the conversion processes needed to
convert the raw material into finished products. It consists of two parts:

 PROCESS DESIGN is concerned with the overall sequences of operations

required to achieve the product specifications
 OPERATIONS DESIGN is concerned with the design of the individual
manufacturing operation.

Framework for Process Design: The process design is concerned with the following:

I. Characteristics of the product or service offered to the customers.

II. Expected volume of output.
III. Kinds of equipments and machines available in the firm.
IV. Whether equipments and machines should be of special purpose or general
purpose.
V. Cost of equipments and machines needed.
VI. Kind of labour skills available, amount of labour available and their wage rates.
VII. Expenditure to be incurred for manufacturing processes.
VIII. Whether the process should be capital-intensive or labour-intensive.
IX. Make or buy decision.
X. Method of handling materials economically.

PROCESS SELECTION
Process selection refers to the way production of goods or services is organized. It is
the basis of decision regarding capacity planning, facilities (or plant) layout, equipments
and design of work systems. Process selection is necessary when a firm takes up
production of new products or services to be offered to the customers. Three primary
questions to be addressed before deciding on process selection are:

I. How much variety of products or services will the system need to handle?
II. What degree of equipment flexibility will be needed?
III. What is the expected volume of output?
PROCESS STRATEGY
Process strategy is an organization‟s approach to selection of the process for the
conversion of resource inputs into outputs. KEY ASPECTS IN PROCESS STRATEGY

include:

 Make or buy decisions

 Capital intensity and
 Process flexibility

Virtually every goods or service is made by using some variations of one of these
PROCESS STRATEGIES. They are:

 Process Focus
 Repetitive Focus
 Product Focus
 WORK STUDY
Work Study concerns itself with better way of doing things and control over the output of
those things by setting standards with respect to time. Method Study and Time Study
together comprise Work Study.

IMPORTANCE OF WORK STUDY

 To improve performance of a given work.
 To continuously strive for low production cost, high product quality and improve
every facet of manufacturing.

DEFINITION
Work study is the body of knowledge concerned with analysis of the work methods, and
the standard of proposed work methods.

OBJECTIVES OF WORK STUDY

 To analyze the present method of doing a job, systematically in order to develop
a new and better method.
 To measure a work content of the job by measuring the time required to do the
job for a qualified worker and hence to establish standard time.
 To increase the productivity by ensuring the best possible use of human,
machine and material resources and to achieve best quality product/service at
minimum possible cost.
 To improve operational efficiency.

BENEFITS OF WORK STUDY

 Increased productivity and operational efficiency.
 Reduced manufacturing costs.
 Improved work place layout.
 Better manpower planning and capacity planning.
 Fair wages to employees.
  Better working condition to employees.
 Improved work flow.
 Reduced material handling costs.
 Provides a standard of performance to measure labour efficiency.
 Better industrial relations and employee morale.
 Basis of sound incentive scheme.
 Provide better job satisfaction to employees.

RELATIONSHIP OF TIME AND MOTION STUDY TO WORK STUDY

Time study and motion study are results of practices developed by F.W. Taylor, Frank
and Lillian Gilbreth. However,

 Time study is a quantitative analysis leading to establishment of a time standard

whereas
 Motion study is a qualitative analysis of a work station leading to the design or
improvement of an operation / activity.

RELATIONSHIP OF MOTION AND TIME STUDY TO WORK DESIGN

BASIC WORK STUDY PROCEDURE
There are eight basic steps involved in a work study procedure. Some of them are
common to both method study and work measurement. The steps are shown in the
following diagram.

1. Select the job to be studied.

2. Record the relevant facts about the job using suitable charting techniques.
3. Examine critically all the recorded facts
4. Develop the new method for the job
5. Measure the work content and establish the standard time using an appropriate
work-measurement technique.
6. Define the new method for the job
7. Install the new method as standard practice.
8. Maintain the new method for the job

STEPS INVOLVED IN WORK STUDY

METHOD STUDY OR METHOD ANALYSIS
It is a scientific technique of observing, recording and critically examining the present
method of performing a task or job or operation with the aim of improving the present
method and developing a new cheaper method. It is also known as methods
improvement or work improvement.

 ELEMENTS OF METHOD STUDY

 Work Processes
 Working conditions
 Equipments and tools used to carry out the job

 ObJECTIVES OF METHOD STUDY: Primary objective of method study is to

eliminate wasteful and inefficient motions.

 METHOD STUDY PROCEDURE

1. SELECT: Select the work or job to be studied and define the objectives to be
achieved by method study.
2. RECORD: Record all the relevant facts or information pertaining to the existing
methods using the recording techniques such as Process Charts and
Diagram
3. EXAMINE: The recorded facts critically challenging everything being done and
seeking alternatives, questioning
 The purpose (what is achieved?),
 The means (how it is achieved?),
 The place (where it is achieved?) And
 The person (who achieves it?).

The questioning attitudes of method study

 What is done?
 What is the purpose of the operation?
 Why should it be done?
 What would happen if it were not done?
 Is every part of the operation necessary?
 Who does the work?
 Why does this person do it?
 Why could do it better?
 Can changes be made to permit a person with less skill and training to
do the work?
 Where is the work done?
 Why is it done there?
 Could it be done somewhere else more economically?
 When is the work done?
 Why should it be done then?
 Would it be better to do it at some other time?
 How is the work done?
 Why is it done in this way?
4. DEVELOP: The improved method by generating several alternatives and
selecting the best method. The factors to be considered while evaluating
alternatives and selecting the best method are:
 Cost of implementation
  Expected savings in time and cost
 Feasibility
 Producibility
 Acceptance to design, production planning and control, quality control
production and sales departments
 Reaction of employees to the new method
 Short term or long term implication of the alternative.

Establish the new method by providing suitable equipment design,

mechanical aids, jigs and fixtures, tools, working conditions, material handling
Equipments, workplace layout and work planning and control techniques.

5. INSTALL: The improved (new) method in three phases- planning, arranging

and implementing phases. In the first two phases, the programme of
installation and a schedule (i.e., time table)