DESIGN COMPLIANCE EFFECTIVENESS (DCE)

Edward Surette, BSEE, MSME, PE Lead Auditor TUV Management Service a division of TUV America Inc.

The Term Design Compliance Effectiveness (DCE) is a sub-set of Design for the Environment and is used to describe the overall capability of a product or process to accomplish its mission or perform its intended function. DCE is defined as the probability that the product of process can successfully meet an operational, environmental and customer demand within a given time when operating under specified conditions.

This paper will show that environmental performance is an attribute of a system resulting from design, just as is the system capacity, performance, reliability or power rating.

The objective is to design, manufacture, service, and package and maintains life-cycle control of products and processes to meet the total needs and expectations of the customer and assure product satisfaction. Compliance is influenced by the way the system is designed, manufactured, used and maintained and this is a function of all the life-cycle activities as well as system attributes such as design adequacy, performance measures, environmental, health and safety, reliability, quality, producability, maintainability and product-take-back.

The role of the Design Engineer in DCE

An important step in implementing DCE is the recognition that compliance is part of the company's competitive strategy. DCE should be included in the goals and objectives of the overall organization, with each department having its own strategic plans that match the overall business plan.

The design engineer's role in DCE is the understanding of the issues of manufacturing, environmental compliance, testing reliability and other DFX parameters. New product plans should be developed only after clear understanding of the current levels of DFX in existing products.

Another important role for design engineering is to influence the long-range capital and process developments in the company. The long-range plan of manufacturing for increased automation, computer-integrated manufacturing and information flow should be in line with plans for new products and technologies. In addition the design engineering department should influence other departments to obtain the information necessary to implement successful and credible DFE plans, such as: Documenting environmental concerns relating to material usage and product take-back, process capability for the manufacturing process, material standardization, determining the current level of warranty cost for the quality department, and planning the service level for future products.

After the new product is released to manufacturing, the DCE team should perform a retrospective analysis.

The role of Manufacturing Engineering in DCE

Manufacturing Engineering Department's role in concurrent engineering is the characterization and documentation of the current process, and its communication to design engineering. Design guidelines for existing and future manufacturing processes should be published, and updated to the most current state as equipment is purchased and the processes are enhanced.

Characterizing the manufacturing capability and constraints is the key to the success of DCE. Process capability measurements can be a direct result of the product/process design and implementation and maintaining statistical quality control on the production process. A target plan for continuous process improvement and its results should be communicated regularly to the design-engineering department. Failure data should be considered not only from factory processes but from field failures and warranty reports as well.

The long-range plans for manufacturing in terms of process capability, automation, test, environmental compliance, supplier certification, delivery and distribution and people training and recruiting efforts should be made in line with the company's marketing strategy, and after consultation with the engineering department plans.

The Role of Management in DCE

Under a regime of comprehensive environmental management, an element in the ISO 14001 Standard, the company will set corporate goals for effluent and develop corporate policies on the environment, appointing a senior vice president to champion the environment at the boardroom level. These forward-looking companies will invest in site monitoring of effluent, empower internal audit to conduct environmental reviews, and probably issue a state-of-the environment report describing compliance with existing regulations.

An Environmental Management System (ISO 14001) is a system to achieve an organization's environmental policies and objectives. The model is designed to respond proactively to changing regulations, social, economic and competitive pressures, and environmental risks. Corporate policies and corporate culture that reflect sensitivity to an expanded accountability to shareholders and a commitment to continuous improvement are key to successful implementation.

The Role of Other Disciplines in DCE

Other departments, such as EH&S, quality, procurement, accounting, facilities, marketing and field service, should also be involved in the DCE process to set the concurrent baseline of quality, reliability, service and repair of current products.

The environmental department shall compile and interpret all regulatory aspects of the products and processes used within the company. All departments in making decisions regarding design, procurement, manufacturing, quality and reliability shall use these requirements.

Marketing should play an important role in focusing customer inputs by using tools and techniques such as quality functional deployment (QFD). This is a marketing and design-engineering tool. It is similar to other DCE tools, such as process capability index and design efficiency ratings, that bind the design and manufacturing parts of the organization together.

The quality department should provide the audit function on the quality data being generated at the production floor, as well as the reliability data being generated in the field.

The field marketing and service groups should input very strongly into the design of new products in order to facilitate the serviceability and the repair of a company's products. Many of the tenets of DCE, such as standardization of materials and processes and ease of assembly and disassembly should result in reduction of the number of tools and spare departments should participate in the design decision.

Design Guides

A primary vehicle for communicating manufacturing capabilities/constraints, environmental considerations, material selections, quality and reliability provisions is the publication of Design Guidelines. This document should be developed and updated on regular bases and communicated to the design engineers.

Design guidelines should be treated as any other company specification, under engineering change control and management sign-off. The design guidelines should be augmented with the manufacturing process future plans, the outline of the schedule of process and technology upgrades, and with the process improvements updates based on actual quality monitoring on the production floor.

The DCE Product Development Team

An effective DCE product development team is a synergistic group of professionals who are committed to achieving common objectives: Working well together; sharing resources, information, and skill sets; using and learning from collective experience; and producing a continuously improved product.

Product development teams should be formed with experts from different parts of the organization. In many cases they will be working together for the first time.

Every team member is respected for their knowledge in their own area, and team members listen and respect each other's ideas.

Measuring DCE Team Results

Measuring Design Compliance effectiveness involves measuring the aspects of the development process that are not directly related to product development and achieving product performance milestones. These measures should be kept up to date and used to set the goals of new product/process development. They are divided into four categories of performance metrics:

Design phase metrics · Production phase metrics · Design process metrics · People metrics

This metrics is intended as a starting kit towards identifying important aspects of the design and development process, Many of the measures can be set to historical levels, or updated as the company's competitive position changes.

The production phase metrics are focused on the inherent benefits of concurrent engineering: Ramp-up of production, minimizing the number of engineering changes after product release, and the cost and quality of the product, both at the factory and in the field.

The design process metrics measure the investment in capital equipment and processes for the company, and keep track of the progress on turnaround times for prototypes and assemblies.

The people metrics measures the most important element of product development: The engineers and scientists working on the projects. Keeping the technical staff interested and motivated through prompt evaluations, training and solid project assignment is very important to long-term commitment of the company to its people.

The measures of all process metrics, in terms of progress in the design and manufacturing phases, as well as the improvements in the design process and the people metrics, must be presented in a framework

Ed is a lead auditor for ISO 14001 and ISO 9000. Ed was formerly the President of Global Environmental Management Services (GEMS) specializing in helping clients become ISO 14001 ready. Ed is on the Massachusetts's Governors Advisory Board for Pollution Prevention, and Toxic Use Reduction. Prior to GEMS Ed was the Worldwide Corporate Principle Engineer for M/A-COM/AMP in all areas of EH&S including DFE and ISO 14001 implementation.

 

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