Charlie Hackett, leader of Corporate Improvement at Hypertherm (NH) received The Distinguished DFMA Supporter of the Year award from Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. The Award is offered annually at the Boothroyd Dewhurst International Forum on Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) and acknowledges people and teams that work together in exceptional ways to improve products and educate others in industry.

John Gilligan (left), president of Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. congratulates Charlie Hackett of Hypertherm (NH) on receiving the 2018 “Distinguished DFMA Supporter of the Year” award. The announcement was made at the 33rd annual Boothroyd Dewhurst International Forum on Design for Manufacture and Assembly held in Providence, RI, USA at the Omni Hotel.

The Forum was held in Providence, RI, September 11-12, and is the foremost conference worldwide on DFMA methodologies and software for product simplification and early costing. DFMA software helps engineers quantify manufacturing and assembly costs beginning at the earliest stages in development to reduce part count and labor, increase assembly efficiency, and benchmark competitive designs and materials. The resulting savings significantly reduce product development cycle time and reverberate down the supply chain from design through manufacturing and beyond to shipping and end-of-life.

Notable achievements, presented at this year’s Forum, were:

• BAIC (Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., Ltd.): For a middle-pole frame structure associated with the grill, engineers used DFMA to reduce part count by 67%; manufacturing time by 76%; manufacturing cost by 30%; and weight by 24%. The goal at BAIC is platform standardization among different vehicle models to reduce overall development and vehicle complexity.

• Endress & Hauser (instrumentation and process automation): Redesigned seven projects for a ten-year savings of one-million per year, or 10-million dollars total across their combined use-cycle of a decade.

• Raytheon (Aerospace, Defense, Civil Government and Cybersecurity): Has achieved a 31% average cost savings on 500 products/parts using the DFMA methodology integrated with Lean and Continuous Improvement programs.

• Dynisco (Control and analysis instrumentation for plastic extruded process equipment): Improved ease of assembly on a product that saw a 12% reduction in parts and 19% reduction in assembly time, while also increasing features and functionality on the upgraded LMI 5500 model that is derived from an existing product line previously analyzed with DFMA.

For more information about the 2018 DFMA Forum go to: http://www.dfma.com/forum

About Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc.

Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc. was the first company to commercialize Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) methodologies and software tools, which make it possible to evaluate, estimate, and reduce the manufacturing

cost of a product in the design phase through product simplification and cost estimation. Hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies, including Dell, John Deere, and Boeing, use DFMA to cut the costs of their manufactured products and achieve design innovation in their markets. The company was founded in 1983 and received the National Medal of Technology Award in 1991. For more information about DFMA, visit www.dfma.com.