Integration of DFMA and sustainability - A case study

ABSTRACT

In recent days, incorporation of sustainability principles in product design is gaining importance to survive and compete in the market. The goal of this work is to simultaneously apply the DFMA and sustainability principles in product design. For this purpose, a bike horn is chosen as a candidate product. The three dimensional model of an existing bike horn is created in a modelling package. The DFMA principles are applied to reduce the number of parts, cost of materials, manufacturing processes and the assembly time. The number of parts and total cost were reduced by 22.92 and 24.59%, respectively. The sustainability concepts are then applied on the product with a view to reduce its impact on the environment. It was found that, the carbon footprint and the total energy consumed were reduced by 13.04 and 8.69%, respectively. Thus, the integrated application of DFMA and sustainability concepts results in not only economical product but also eco-friendly one.

KEYWORDS:

• Eco-design
• sustainability
• product design
• design for environment
• design for manufacture and assembly
• carbon footprint

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arunkumar Subbaiah

Dr. Arunkumar Subbaiah, currently serves as assistant professor in the department of Mechanical Engineering at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. He received his PhD from IIT Madras. During his PhD, he performed various experiments like high cycle fatigue, high temperature fatigue (both HCF and LCF), high temperature corrosion fatigue using MTS servo hydraulic testing machine (100kN capacity). Presently, at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, he teaches design related subjects such as fracture mechanics, mechanical vibrations, numerical methods, pressure vessel design, engineering mechanics, finite element methods and materials testing laboratory. He has published papers in various international journals and conferences.

Kishore M. Antony

Kishore M. Antony is a graduate student in the department of Mechanical Engineering at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. His areas of interest are DFMA, finite element analysis.