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Leading Manufacturers Report Millions Saved with Design Software

Presentations at Boothroyd Dewhurst forum attest to value of Design for Manufacture and Assembly

WAKEFIELD, R.I., USA, June 26, 2007 – Companies using Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA®) software, developed by Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., report dramatic savings in time, materials and costs when applying its product design analysis techniques to manufacturing challenges.

Those savings were a consistent focus at the twenty-second annual International Forum of Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA®), held in Providence, R.I. earlier this month. The theme of this year’s event, considered the foremost conference worldwide on DFMA methodologies for product developers, was “Dialogue and Design: Working Together to Develop Cost-Effective Products.”

With DFMA, engineers can quantify manufacturing and assembly costs early in the development process to improve assembly efficiency, reduce part count, cut costs and benchmark competitive designs.

Participating companies, including Deere & Company, TRW Automotive, Tellabs, Solectron, Trane, and Harris, gave strong testimony – in some cases reporting millions of dollars in savings – about the benefits of applying DFMA methodology to their particular industrial applications. Topics this year included lean manufacturing, sustainable design, concurrent design challenges in electronics, benchmarking, product cost estimating, and DFMA in a global engineering environment.

Among the highlights of achievement presented were:

• Harris Corporation – maker of two-way radios for government and military – used DFMA to reduce the number of parts/operations from 78 to 18, reduced costs per unit by almost $86 and, based on expected production volumes, estimated savings of $4,297,500.
• TRW – maker of automotive parts for brakes, steering, occupant safety systems, and fastener products with over 100 plants worldwide – used DFMA to significantly reduce costs per product versus a competitor, achieving potential annual savings in the millions and securing a major business opportunity with Ford Motor Company.
• Deere – manufacturer of engines and equipment for off-highway vehicles – modified the landing deck assembly of a combine harvester, reducing raw material cost by 60 percent and streamlining parts from 17 to 10, beating its original product target cost by seven percent.
• Solectron – electronic circuit board manufacturer and provider of integrated supply chain services – reduced both part count and direct assembly time by 31 percent.
• LeCroy – maker of digital sampling devices – made changes early in the design process that enabled them to reduce the number of parts in a product from 68 to 22, improving manufacturability and controlling costs.

Boothroyd Dewhurst Executive Vice President Nick Dewhurst welcomed the positive feedback from such a wide range of DFMA users. “It is very gratifying to hear our customers sharing the successes we knew they were achieving with our software,” he said. “Such savings have consistently been reported since DFMA was commercialized over 20 years ago, despite all the ongoing changes in manufacturing technology.”

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, Harley-Davidson, and Maytag, 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 software, workshops, consulting services, and international conferences, contact Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., 138 Main Street, Wakefield, R.I. 02879, USA. Tel. (401) 783-5840. Fax (401) 783-6872. Web site: www.dfma.com. E-mail: info@dfma.com.

DFMA is a registered trademark of Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc.