A quality improving method to assist the Integrated Product Development process

Abstract

Several studies confirm the benefits of anticipating and solving problems that might occur in a product lifecycle in the conceptual phase of the IPD - Integrated Product Development process. The challenge posed by the IPD is to develop adequate tools and procedures to make the required anticipation feasible. One problem faced by the IPD is to control the variation of the product manufacturing process that impacts directly on both product cost and delivery schedules. Corrective actions must be anticipated and carried out to reduce this variability and improve the product quality right from the beginning of the process. This paper presents the Design for Quality Costs - DFQC - a method for minimizing the non-quality costs of the new products through the anticipation of improvements in the product manufacturing process and/or product design. The proposed method is based on the concepts of Lean Engineering Thinking and DFSS - Design for Six Sigma. This paper also shows that the proposed method might be applied in the virtual environment built by Digital Manufacturing software commercially available.

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