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Topic Name: Design revolution
Category: Design technologies
Research persons: Tongdan Jin and Yeliz Ozalp
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Details
A revolutionary approach to the design of consumer products - from
automobiles to plasma TVs - could cut manufacturers' warranty costs
significantly. Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of
Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, US researchers explain how manufacturers
should simply design for reliability.
Tongdan Jin of Texas A&M International University and Yeliz Ozalp of Teradyne
Inc, in North Reading, Massachusetts, have developed an optimization procedure
to allow manufacturers to minimize the costs of replacing and repairing their
products under customer warranty agreements. Their design for reliability (DFR)
approach, if implemented in the early development phase of product design will
allow manufacturers to proactively eradicate potential hardware, software,
process and customer usage issues that lead to costly component and system
failures.
The team points out that traditionally predicting which components, whether
physical or software based are likely to lead to product failure that must be
remedied under warranties is difficult. This is compounded by the fact that
there are so many uncertainties associated with how, when and where a product
will be used by the consumer.
They have devised an appraisal system that allows product designers to estimate
which component and which non-component failures are likely to occur given
particular operating temperatures and customer usage patterns. They have used
this model to build an optimization program - a genetic algorithm - that can
help a manufacturer formulate a strategy for designing out potentially expensive
flaws in the early development phase.
"The trade-off between the design budget and the warranty cost is compared under
different design options," the researchers explain. They have tested their
approach successfully in the optimal design of an automated semiconductor test
apparatus.
"As system integration continues to increase and interactions among functional
design elements get more complex, product reliability must be addressed when a
product is still in the early development phase," the team explains. Of course,
by improving reliability, the approach not only reduces the total costs of
warranty services and replacements but improves customer satisfaction by
enhancing the quality of the products being sold.
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