That marketers increasingly use robots and automation equipment in their TV ads should come as no surprise. To them, such machinery represents the product they're selling: An automatic and simple push-button solution to the problem consumers are worried about at that moment.
This article is not as good as it could be.
I spent many days researching the topic, finding sources, conducting interviews, and finally writing and organizing what I learned. I could have included extra information or contacted additional sources. I could have polished one section or an-other. But, at some point, the article needed to be done.
In the early 1980s, a product design methodology called design for assembly (DFA) began to gain popularity. It focused on improving efficiency by evaluating the amount of labor required for assembly. Since that time, the DFA methodology has been adopted with much success by more than 850 corporations.
BEIJING, China—A Foxconn executive blamed the shortage of the iPhone 5 on the device’s complicated design, calling the phone “the most difficult device that we have ever assembled.”
To illustrate how to get more from lean manufacturing by first applying the principles of DFMA, let’s examine a simple product comprised of two pieces of sheet metal.