Applying Design for Environment (DfE) methodology to Rapid Manufacturing (RM)

Start - Finish:

March - September 2004

Research Conducted by:

Dr. Neil Hopkinson

Keywords:

Boothroyd Dewhurst, DFE software

Industrial collaborators:

Jaguar Cars Ltd

Aims & Objectives:

• To assess the viability of applying software based Design for Environment (DfE) to products that may be produced by Rapid Manufacturing

• Re-design assemblies to improve design for disassembly, reuse and recycling

• Produce assemblies by Rapid Manufacture and test for performance and disassembly

Brief Description

Rapid Manufacturing technologies are being used to create an increasing variety of products without any need for tooling. The elimination of tooling offers significant design freedoms that have been used to create multi-component assemblies as single units or with reduced part counts.

Environmental legislation (including the End of Life Vehicles directive) is forcing companies to consider disassembly, reuse and recycling during the design of products. In this project, Boothroyd Dewhurst's DFE software is being used to analyse and re-design automotive assemblies. The figure below shows how the disassembly time and cost of a handbrake has been reduced by re-designing the product with Rapid Manufacture in mind.