Development and utilization of a DFMA-evaluation matrix for comparing the level of modularity and standardization in clamping systems

The advantages of standardization and modularization for manufacturing-friendly design are widely acknowledged. In design assessment, numerical evaluation forms are commonly used to evaluate both manufacturability and assembility. This article combines these two perspectives and proposes a tool enabling the evaluation and comparison of alternative constructions based on modularity, standardization, manufacturability and assembility. The first part introduces a DFMA-evaluation ma-trix which considers an assembly’s suitability for modular-ization or standardization. The second part is preliminary validation of the results which includes accuracy meas-urements from the selected fixturing system. The evaluation matrix proves to be a working evaluation method for evaluating levels of modularity and standardization. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.19.6.5999