Development of redesign method of production system based on QFD

Abstract

In order to catch up with rapidly changing market environment, rapid andflexible redesign of production system is quite important. For effectiveand rapid redesign of production system, a redesign support system iseagerly needed. To this end, this paper proposes a redesign method ofproduction system based on Quality Function Deployment (QFD). Thismethod represents a designer's intention in the form of QFD, collectsexperts' knowledge as ``Production Method (PM) modules,{''} andformulates redesign guidelines as seven redesign operations so as tosupport a designer to find out improvement ideas in a systematicalmanner. This paper also illustrates a redesign support tool of aproduction system we have developed based on this method, anddemonstrates its feasibility with a practical example of a productionsystem of a contact probe. A result from this example shows thatcomparable cost reduction to those of veteran designers can be achievedby a novice designer. From this result, we conclude our redesign methodis effective and feasible for supporting redesign of a productionsystem.