A fuzzy set AHP-based DFM tool for rotational parts

Design for manufacturability (DFM) requires product designers to simultaneously consider the manufacturing issues of a product along with the geometrical and design aspects. This paper reports a computer-aided DFM tool for product designers to evaluate the manufacturability of their designs. A fuzzy set-based manufacturability evaluation algorithm is formulated to generate relative manufacturability indices (MIs) to provide product designers with a better understanding of the relative ease or difficulty of machining the features in their designs. This computer-aided DFM system is developed for rotational parts. The MI of machining a part is decomposed into three components, namely, the support index, the clamping index, and the feature index. An analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method is introduced to assign weighting factors to features to reflect their functional importance. Results from the case studies show that the system is capable of generating sound MIs that could help product designers in making designs easier to manufacture, while not compromising the functional requirements of their designs. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.