Design transfer and design for manufacturability [Senior Design]

An understanding of manufacturing operations allows biomedical engineers to design products that can be manufactured at a reasonable cost. The ability to apply lean manufacturing and design for manufacturability principles can help speed up assembly operations, avoid repetitive motion injuries among production workers, and reduce waste and scrap, resulting in time and cost savings. Students need to understand that their role on a project team in industry will not end after design validation and verification and that they will be responsible for tasks included in the design transfer phase. To expose them to the entire design process and improve their understanding of the requirements of professional practice, capstone design courses should include design transfer as part of the course curriculum. At the end of the class, students understood the importance of designing a product not only for the end user but also with the assembler and inspector in mind.