Product Design Standardization For Flexible Manufacturing--Is This Rea

A 1987 survey found that one of the four biggest problems in the design for manufacturing arena is that "manufacturing is failing to communicate what they need from design." Management cannot be lulled into believing that flexible manufacturing is a panacea. We must recognize that communication with design is even more important with a capital intensive investment in flexible manufacturing if we are going to effectively utilize this system. Flexible manufacturing is not so "flexible" that we can cost effectively manufacture anything that design throws over the fence. Manufacturing must take the responsibility for providing cost-effective manufacturing information to design. This paper provides the reader with a systematic method of attacking this communication problem with the development of a group technology-based, process-driven design directive.