Design for Excellence or Design For Excellence (DfX or DFX), are terms and expansions used interchangeably in the existing literature, where the ''X'' in ''design for X'' is a variable which can have one of many possible values. In many fields (e.g., very-large-scale integration (VLSI) and

nanoelectronics Nanoelectronics refers to the use of nanotechnology in electronic components. The term covers a diverse set of devices and materials, with the common characteristic that they are so small that inter-atomic interactions and quantum mechanical p ...

) ''X'' may represent several traits or features including: manufacturability, power, variability, cost, yield, or reliability.

Saraju Mohanty Saraju Mohanty is an American professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and the director of the Smart Electronic Systems Laboratory, at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Mohanty received a Glorious India Aw ...

, Chapter 3 Nanoelectronics Issues in Design for excellence,
Nanoelectronic Mixed-Signal System Design
, and 0071825711, 1st Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2015. This gives rise to the terms

design for manufacturability Design for manufacturability (also sometimes known as design for manufacturing or DFM) is the general engineering practice of designing products in such a way that they are easy to manufacture. The concept exists in almost all engineering discipl ...

(DfM, DFM),

design for inspection Design for Inspection (DFI) is an engineering principle that proposes that inspection methods and measurement instruments used to certify manufacturing conformity, should be considered early in the design of products. Production processes should be ...

(DFI), design for variability (DfV), design for cost (DfC). Similarly, other disciplines may associate other traits, attributes, or objectives for ''X''. Under the label ''design for X'', a wide set of specific design guidelines are summarized. Each design guideline addresses a given issue that is caused by, or affects the traits of, a product. The design guidelines usually propose an approach and corresponding methods that may help to generate and apply technical knowledge to control, improve, or even invent particular traits of a product. From a knowledge-based view, the design guideline represents an explicit form of knowledge, that contains information about ''knowing-

how-to The Linux Documentation Project (LDP) is a dormant an all-volunteer project that maintains a large collection of GNU and Linux-related documentation and publishes the collection online. It began as a way for hackers to share their documentation ...

'' (see

Procedural knowledge Procedural knowledge (also known as knowing-how, and sometimes referred to as practical knowledge, imperative knowledge, or performative knowledge) is the knowledge exercised in the performance of some task. Unlike descriptive knowledge (also kno ...

). However, two problems are prevalent. First, this explicit knowledge (i.e., the design guidelines) were transformed from a tacit form of knowledge (i.e., by experienced engineers, or other specialists). Thus, it is not granted that a freshman or someone who is outside the subject area will comprehend this generated explicit knowledge. This is because it still contains embedded fractions of knowledge or respectively include non-obvious assumptions, also called context-dependency (see e.g. Doz and Santos, 1997:16–18). Second, the traits of a product are likely to exceed the knowledge base of one human. There exists a wide range of specialized fields of engineering, and considering the whole life cycle of a product will require non-engineering expertise. For this purpose, examples of design guidelines are listed in the following.

Rules, guidelines, and methodologies along the product life cycle

DfX methodologies address different issues that may occur in one or more phase of a

product life cycle In industry, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its inception through the engineering, design and manufacture, as well as the service and disposal of manufactured products. PLM ...

: * Development phase * Production phase * Use phase * Disposal phase Each phase is explained with two dichotomous categories of tangible products to show differences in prioritizing design issues in certain

phases: *

Consumer durables In economics, a durable good or a hard good or consumer durable is a good that does not quickly wear out or, more specifically, one that yields utility over time rather than being completely consumed in one use. Items like bricks could be consid ...

Capital goods The economic concept of a capital good (also called complex product systems (CoPS),H. Rush, "Managing innovation in complex product systems (CoPS)," IEE Colloquium on EPSRC Technology Management Initiative (Engineering & Physical Sciences Researc ...

Non-durables that are consumed physically when used, e.g. chocolate or lubricants, are not discussed. There also exist a wide range of other classifications because products are either (a) goods, (b) service, or (c) both (see OECD and Eurostat, 2005:48). Thus, one can also refer to

whole product In marketing, the whole product concept is an adaptation of the total product concept developed by Ted Levitt, a professor at Harvard Business School. In his book entitled “The Marketing Imagination” Levitt drew attention to the fact that consu ...

, augmented product, or extended product. Also the business unit strategy of a firm are ignored, even though it significantly influences priority-setting in design.

Development phase

* Design rules ** Basic rules of embodiment design: clarity,

simplicity Simplicity is the state or quality of being simple. Something easy to understand or explain seems simple, in contrast to something complicated. Alternatively, as Herbert A. Simon suggests, something is simple or complex depending on the way we ...

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are two slightly dif ...

(Pahl and Beitz, 1996: 205–236) * Organizational process **Design for short

time to market In commerce, time to market (TTM) is the length of time it takes from a product being conceived until its being available for sale. The reason that time to market is so important is since being late erodes the addressable market into which prod ...

(Bralla, 1996: 255–266) * System design, testing & validation ** Design for reliability (Bralla, 1996: 165–181), Synonyms: Reliability Engineering (VDI4001-4010) **

Design for test Design for testing or design for testability (DFT) consists of IC design techniques that add testability features to a hardware product design. The added features make it easier to develop and apply manufacturing tests to the designed hardware. Th ...

** Design for safety (Bralla, 1996: 195–210; VDI2244); Synonyms:

safety engineering Safety engineering is an engineering discipline which assures that engineered systems provide acceptable levels of safety. It is strongly related to industrial engineering/systems engineering, and the subset system safety engineering. Safety eng ...

, safe-life design ** Design for quality (Bralla, 1996: 149–164; VDI2247), Synonyms:

quality engineering Quality engineering is the discipline of engineering concerned with the principles and practice of product and service quality assurance and control. In software development, it is the management, development, operation and maintenance of IT sys ...

** Design against

corrosion Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engi ...

damage (Pahl and Beitz, 1996: 294–304) ** Design for minimum

risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environm ...

(Pahl and Beitz, 1996:373–380)

Production-operations phase

* Design rules **

Design to cost Design-to-Cost (DTC), as part of cost management techniques, describes a systematic approach to controlling the costs of product development and manufacturing. The basic idea is that costs are designed "into the product", even from the earliest co ...

(Pahl and Beitz, 1996: 467–494; VDI2234; VDI 2235), see

Target costing Target costing is an approach to determine a product's life-cycle cost which should be sufficient to develop specified functionality and quality, while ensuring its desired profit. It involves setting a target cost by subtracting a desired profit ...

Value engineering Value engineering (VE) is a systematic analysis of the functions of various components and materials to lower the cost of goods, products and services with a tolerable loss of performance or functionality. Value, as defined, ...

** Design to standards (Pahl and Beitz, 1996:349–356), see Interchangeable parts, product modularity,

product architecture Product may refer to: Business * Product (business), an item that serves as a solution to a specific consumer problem. * Product (project management), a deliverable or set of deliverables that contribute to a business solution Mathematics * Prod ...

, product platform * Design Guidelines **

Design for assembly Design for assembly (DFA) is a process by which products are designed with ease of assembly in mind. If a product contains fewer parts it will take less time to assemble, thereby reducing assembly costs. In addition, if the parts are provided wi ...

(Bralla, 1996: 127–136), (Pahl and Beitz, 1996: 340–349) **

Design for Inspection Design for Inspection (DFI) is an engineering principle that proposes that inspection methods and measurement instruments used to certify manufacturing conformity, should be considered early in the design of products. Production processes should be ...

(Hitchens Carl (2014) Guide to Engineering Metrology) **

Design for manufacturability Design for manufacturability (also sometimes known as design for manufacturing or DFM) is the general engineering practice of designing products in such a way that they are easy to manufacture. The concept exists in almost all engineering discipl ...

(Bralla, 1996: 137–148), (Pahl and Beitz, 1996: 317–340) ** Design for logistics, Design for postponement (see Delayed differentiation) * Specific situations ** Design for Electronic Assemblies (Bralla, 1996: 267–279) ** Design for Low-Quantity Production (Bralla, 1996: 280–288)

Design rules

and design to standards serves cost reduction in production operations, or respectively supply chain operations. Except for luxury goods or brands (e.g., Swarovski crystals, Haute couture fashion, etc.), most goods, even exclusive products, rely on cost reduction, if these are

mass produced Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...

. The same is valid for the functional production strategy of

mass customization In marketing, manufacturing, call centre operations, and management, mass customization makes use of flexible computer-aided systems to produce custom output. Such systems combine the low unit costs of mass production processes with the flexibili ...

. Through

engineering design The engineering design process is a common series of steps that engineers use in creating functional products and processes. The process is highly iterative - parts of the process often need to be repeated many times before another can be entere ...

physical interfaces between a) parts or components or assemblies of the product and b) the manufacturing equipment and the logistical material flow systems can be changed, and thus cost reducing effects in operating the latter may be achieved.

Design guidelines

ensures the fabrication of single parts or components that are based on an integral design in mechanical engineering terms. Every production technology has its own specific design guideline that needs to be consulted depending on the situation. *

addresses the combination of single parts or components to subassemblies, assemblies, modules, systems, etc., that are based on a differential design in mechanical engineering terms. An important issue is how the embodied interfaces within a product are designed (mechanical engineering, electrical engineering). Contrary, software or respectively firmware interfaces (software engineering, electrical engineering) are not significant for assembly operations, because these can be easily flash installed within one production step. That is a cost efficient way to enable a wide range of product variants. * Design for logistics covers issues along supply chain partners (i.e., legally independent firms) but is by its means closely related to the

design for assembly Design for assembly (DFA) is a process by which products are designed with ease of assembly in mind. If a product contains fewer parts it will take less time to assemble, thereby reducing assembly costs. In addition, if the parts are provided wi ...

guidelines. In academic research, design for logistics is tangent to the

strategic alliance A strategic alliance (also see strategic partnership) is an agreement between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed upon objectives needed while remaining independent organizations. The alliance is a cooperation or collaboration which aims ...

s, supply chain management, and the

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

part of

new product development In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) covers the complete process of bringing a new product to market, renewing an existing product or introducing a product in a new market. A central aspect of NPD is product design, along ...

. For example, Sanchez and Mahoney (1996) argued that product modularity (i.e., how physical sub-systems of a product are sub-divided through interfaces; also called product or system architecture), and organizational modularity (i.e., how organisational entities are structured), depend on each other, and Fixson et al. (2005) found that the relationship between product architecture and organisational structure is reciprocal in context of early supplier involvement (ESI) during the system design or respectively concept phase of the product development process.

Use phase

*User focused, see Product design, Industrial design ** Design for user-friendliness (Bralla, 1996: 237–254), see Usability,

Ben Shneiderman Ben Shneiderman (born August 21, 1947) is an American computer scientist, a Distinguished University Professor in the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science, which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathem ...

, Emotional Design ** Design for

ergonomics Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...

(Pahl and Beitz, 1996: 305–310) ** Design for

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

(Pahl and Beitz, 1996: 311–316) *After-sales focused ** Design for serviceability (Bralla, 1996: 182–194; Pahl and Beitz, 1996: 357–359), ** Design for

maintainability In engineering, maintainability is the ease with which a product can be maintained to: * correct defects or their cause, * Repair or replace faulty or worn-out components without having to replace still working parts, * prevent unexpected working ...

(Bralla, 1996: 182–194; Pahl and Beitz, 1996: 357–359; VDI2246), * Design for repair-reuse-recyclability, a key part of the

International Design Excellence Awards The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) is an award program previously co-sponsored by ''BusinessWeek'' magazine, and in 2010 ''Fast Company'' magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). According to the IDSA, IDEA "i ...

criteria

Comparison: consumer durables vs. capital goods

User focused design guidelines may be associated with

consumer durables In economics, a durable good or a hard good or consumer durable is a good that does not quickly wear out or, more specifically, one that yields utility over time rather than being completely consumed in one use. Items like bricks could be consid ...

, and after-sales focused design guidelines may be more important for

capital goods The economic concept of a capital good (also called complex product systems (CoPS),H. Rush, "Managing innovation in complex product systems (CoPS)," IEE Colloquium on EPSRC Technology Management Initiative (Engineering & Physical Sciences Researc ...

. However, in case of capital goods design for

is needed to ensure clarity,

, and

between the human-machine interface. The intent is to avoid shop-accidents as well as to ensure efficient work flows. Also design for

has become more and more important for capital goods in recent years. In business-to-business (B2B) markets, capital goods are usually ordered, or respectively business transaction are initiated, at industrial trade fairs. The functional traits of capital goods in technical terms are assumed generally as fulfilled across all exhibiting competitors. Therefore, a purchaser may be subliminally influenced by the aesthetics of a

capital good The economic concept of a capital good (also called complex product systems (CoPS),H. Rush, "Managing innovation in complex product systems (CoPS)," IEE Colloquium on EPSRC Technology Management Initiative (Engineering & Physical Sciences Researc ...

when it comes to a purchasing decision. For consumer durables the aspect of after sales highly depends on the business unit's strategy in terms of service offerings, therefore generally statements are not possible to formulate.

Disposal phase

* Design for Environment (Bralla, 1996: 182–194), see also

Life cycle assessment Life cycle assessment or LCA (also known as life cycle analysis) is a methodology for assessing environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. For instance, in the case o ...

Technology assessment Technology assessment (TA, German: , French: ) is a scientific, interactive, and communicative process that aims to contribute to the formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects of science and technology. This is a means of as ...

sustainable engineering Sustainable engineering is the process of designing or operating systems such that they use energy and resources sustainably, in other words, at a rate that does not compromise the natural environment, or the ability of future generations to meet ...

, sustainable design * Design for

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...

(Pahl and Beitz, 1996: 360–372), Design for Disassembly ** Active Disassembly ** Remanufacturing ** Recycling of electrical and electronical equipment – Disassembly and processing (VDI2343) ** Recycling oriented product development (VDI 2243)

Similar concepts in product development

Several other concepts in product development and new product development are very closely related: * ''Engineering Design:'' Design for X * ''Time dimension'':

Product Life Cycle In industry, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its inception through the engineering, design and manufacture, as well as the service and disposal of manufactured products. PLM ...

, Product Life Cycle Engineering,

Product Life Cycle Management Product life-cycle management (PLM) is the succession of strategies by business management as a product goes through its life-cycle. The conditions in which a product is sold (advertising, saturation) changes over time and must be managed as it ...

(that is not the same like the Product Cycle in business studies and

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

, see e.g. Vernon (1966)). Primarily, the unit of analysis here is ''a product'', or more clearly, one item * ''Meso-level organisation'':

concurrent engineering Concurrent engineering (CE) or concurrent design and manufacturing is a work methodology emphasizing the parallelization of tasks (i.e. performing tasks concurrently), which is sometimes called simultaneous engineering or integrated product develo ...

(American), simultaneous engineering (British), and overlapping-parallel Product Development Processes * ''Micro-level organisation'':

cross-functional team A cross-functional team, also known as a multidisciplinary team or interdisciplinary team, is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal. It may include people from finance, marketing, operations, and human ...

s, inter-disciplinary teams, etc. Looking at all life stages of a product (

Product life cycle (engineering) In Industry (economics), industry, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its inception through the Product engineering, engineering, Product design, design and Manufacturing, manu ...

) is essential for design for X, otherwise the ''X'' may be suboptimized, or make no sense. When asking what competencies are required for analysing situations that may occur along the life of a product, it becomes clear that several departmental functions are required. An historical assumption is that

is conducted in a departmental-stage process (that can be traced back to the classical

theory of the firm The theory of the firm consists of a number of economic theories that explain and predict the nature of the firm, company, or corporation, including its existence, behaviour, structure, and relationship to the market. Firms are key drivers in ec ...

, e.g. Max Weber's bureaucracy or

Henri Fayol Henri Fayol (29 July 1841 – 19 November 1925) was a French mining engineer, mining executive, author and director of mines who developed a general theory of business administration that is often called Fayolism.Morgen Witzel (2003). ''Fifty key ...

's administration principles), i.e., new product development activities are closely associated with certain department of a firm. At the start of the 1990s, the concept of

gained popularity to overcome dysfunctions of departmental stage processes. Concurrent engineering postulates that several departments must work closely together for certain new product development activities (see Clark and Fujimoto, 1991). The logical consequence was the emergence of the organisational mechanism of

s. For example, Filippini et al. (2005) found evidence that overlapping product development processes only accelerate new product development projects if these are executed by a

, vice versa.

References

Design for X references * Pahl, G., and Beitz, W. (1996). Engineering Design - A Systematic Approach, 2nd edition, London: Springer
(Google Books Preview)
* Bralla, J. G. (1996). Design for Excellence. New York: McGraw-Hill. * VDI-guidelines of the "

Verein Deutscher Ingenieure Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI) (English: Association of German Engineers) is an organization of over 150,000 engineers and natural scientists. More than 12,000 honorary experts process the latest technical findings each year to promote the techn ...

" can requested unde
(www)
or purchased from the publisher Beut
(www)
The most guidelines are bilingual in German and English. Auxiliary references * Doz, Y. and Santos, J.F.P. (1997). On the management of knowledge: from the transparency of collocation and co-setting to the quandary of dispersion and differentiation. Fontainebleau, France. * Sanchez, R. and Mahoney, J.T. (1996) Modularity, flexibility, and knowledge management in product and organization design. Strategic Management Journal, 17, 63–76. * Fixson, S. K., Ro, Y., & Liker, J. K. (2005). Modularization and Outsourcing: Who drives whom? - A Study of Generational Sequences in the U.S. Automotive Cockpit Industry. International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, 5(2): 166–183. * OECD; Eurostat (2005). Oslo Manual 2005: The Measurement of Scientific and Technological Activities - Proposed guidelines for collecting and interpreting technological innovation data. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Statistical Office of the European Communities
(pdf)
* Vernon, R. (1966) International Investment and International Trade in the Product Cycle. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 80, 190–207. * Clark, K.B. and Fujimoto, T. (1991). Product development performance. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press. * Filippini, R., Salmaso, L. and Tessarolo, P. (2005) Product Development Time Performance: Investigating the Effect of Interactions between Drivers. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 21, 199–214.

External links

DfX-Symposium in GermanyThe IBM Proprinter: A Case Study in Engineering Design
*Mottonen, M., Harkonen, J., Belt, P., Haapasalo, H. and Simila, J. (2009) "Managerial view on design for manufacturing", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 109, No.6, pp. 859–872.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Design For X Design for X, X X X