Roomba 700 series are high-end household vacuum cleaning robots (see Fig. 1). As a former employee of Jabil design services, Yu-Hsiu Lee was responsible for proposing possible cost reduction opportunities.
Fig. 1 iRobot Roomba 700 series (courtesy of iRobot)
When prior products become readily developed, it is important to study cost reduction opportunities to avoid earlier design problems or to change component specifications that were over conservative. By doing so the company can provide better products with lower costs without compromising the quality, which can keep the company stay competitive.
Most common mechanical cost reduction opportunities are of 3 categories, that is, raw material cost, manufacturing equipment cost like molding, and assembly cost. These 3, though defined as separate terms, can be related to one another in certain circumstances.
Raw material cost can be reduced by material change/removal. For example, a metal axle that is not heavily loaded might be replaced by a plastic one if there's no reliability issue, and a plastic housing thickness might as well be reduced if this won't fail related structural tests. Raw material cost can also be reduced via re-design of packing materials.
Manufacturing equipment cost, unlike raw material, is non-recurring but equally important. Take tooling cost for instance, if two or more parts can be combined into one, or the mold structure can be simplified by reducing the use of sliders and angle pins, molding fee can be greatly reduced. A good component design should take both the functional aspect and cost into account.
Assembly cost reduction is usually done by building foolproof features to prevent improper assembly. Another example is replacing screws with snap-fit features, which can reduce assembly time as well as raw material cost.
Most common mechanical cost reduction opportunities are of 3 categories, that is, raw material cost, manufacturing equipment cost like molding, and assembly cost. These 3, though defined as separate terms, can be related to one another in certain circumstances.
Raw material cost can be reduced by material change/removal. For example, a metal axle that is not heavily loaded might be replaced by a plastic one if there's no reliability issue, and a plastic housing thickness might as well be reduced if this won't fail related structural tests. Raw material cost can also be reduced via re-design of packing materials.
Manufacturing equipment cost, unlike raw material, is non-recurring but equally important. Take tooling cost for instance, if two or more parts can be combined into one, or the mold structure can be simplified by reducing the use of sliders and angle pins, molding fee can be greatly reduced. A good component design should take both the functional aspect and cost into account.
Assembly cost reduction is usually done by building foolproof features to prevent improper assembly. Another example is replacing screws with snap-fit features, which can reduce assembly time as well as raw material cost.
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