Proposal of “manufacturing technology for design (MFD)” as a new concept of manufacturing technology management for new value creation

One of the most important issues in technology management at manufacturing companies is to realize “process innovations” that will improve current activities and business processes in order to produce high-quality, low-cost products, systems, infrastructures and services with a short lead time by fully utilizing manufacturing technologies. Design for manufacturability (DFM) is one of the effective methodologies and concepts aiming at process innovations installing manufacturing knowledge and know-how into product design. To strengthen the competitiveness of manufacturing companies, "value innovations” that create new value for customers and markets are as important as “process innovations”. However, DFM often prevents realization of value innovations because it restricts the flexibility of product design. The restriction of product design flexibility disturbs the possibilities of the creation of innovative products, systems, infrastructures, and services. To realize both process innovations and value innovations, a different approach is required. In this paper, “manufacturing technology for design (MFD)” is proposed as a new concept for increasing the flexibility of product design, and manufacturing technology management for MFD is discussed with references to actual applications.