Shipulski On Design

Search Results

There is a groundswell of interest in innovation across the planet. As historians know, the interest in innovation is cyclic, and this year it’s surely in vogue. Everyone wants more of it, even if we don’t know what it is – we want it. And we want it because we want it; it’s an emotional […]

Whether inventing new technologies, designing new products, or solving manufacturing problems, it’s important to understand assumptions. Assumptions shape the technical approach and focus thinking on what is considered (assumed) most important. Blindness to assumptions is all around us and is a real reason for concern.  And the kicker, the most dangerous ones are also the […]

Everyone wants growth – but how? We know innovation is a key to growth, but how do we do it? Be creative, break the rules, think out of the box, think real hard, innovate. Those words don’t help me. What do I do differently after hearing them? I am a process person, processes help me. […]

Lean has been beneficial for many companies, helping improve competitiveness and profitability. But, lean has not been nearly as effective as it can be because there is a missing ingredient – product design. Where lean can reduce the waste of making and moving parts, product design can eliminate the parts altogether; where lean can reduce […]

It was Monday night after dinner.  My thirteen year old son and I got in the car and started on the drive to hockey practice.  I drove and he texted.  I was in the middle a struggle to come up with a topic for this post.  My son finished a text, snapped his phone shut, […]

In the last post on innovation I said I’d provide data on number of hits for a post with innovation in the title.  Well, apparently the word recession is more relevant than the word innovation as there were 50% more hits with recession.  Next time I should use both recession and innovation in the title […]

Al Hamilton, of Axiomatic Design Solutions, wrote a good article on how Axiomatic Design can be used to evaluate multiple design alternatives. Here is an excerpt from the article:   Axiomatic design breaks the design process into four domains, shown in Figure 1.  The customer domain can be thought of as the voice of the […]

Assembly Magazine Column – Shipulski On Design Robots and factories are no longer differentiators Simplicity Isn’t Simple Cost of Spending Too Little The Yin and Yang of Standard Work No At The Expense Of Yes Bet On The Solvers What’s Your Perspective? When Best Practices Aren’t Best Build To Learn Product Before Process Solving The […]

John Teresco of Industry Week wrote a good article that shows how up upfront design enables the next level of improvments in Lean and Six Sigma. Here are several excerpts: At Hypertherm Inc., a manufacturer of plasma cutting systems, the DFMA software enabled a first pass part count reduction as high as 50%, says Mike […]

Results from a new survey show that upfront design using DFMA methods creates significant savings in operational cost — downstream savings. An exerpt from the survey: Sixty-eight percent of a survey group, including Fortune 400 companies, measured an increase in production throughput, and 47 percent an increase in profit per unit of factory floor space, after […]

Successful Design For Assembly Each company works with design for assembly (DFA) methods for different reasons. Some companies want to take cost out of their products, some want to make more products in their factories, and some want to simplify the product to increase quality and reliability. In a growing market, a company wants to […]