iDECON 2010 International Conference on Design and Concurrent Engineering

Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM)

20-21 September 2010

Development of Design for Manufacturing Assembly (DFMA) Software in Bahasa

Melayu
JumAzulhisham A.S.1, Khairul Akmal S 2, Humaizi A3, Rosdzimin4
1

Electrical, Electronics & Automation Section,

Universiti Kuala Lumpur Malaysian Spanish Institute, Lot 13 16 Kulim Hi-Tech Park, 09000 Kulim, Kedah, Malaysia
Phone: +604-403 5219, Fax: +604-403 5201, Email: azulhisham@msi.unikl.edu.my
2

Mechanical Section,
Universiti Kuala Lumpur Malaysian Spanish Institute, Lot 13 16 Kulim Hi-Tech Park, 09000 Kulim, Kedah, Malaysia
Phone: +604-403 5219, Fax: +604-403 5201, Email: khairulakmal@msi.unikl.edu.my
3

Pusat Pengajian Kejuruteraan Pembuatan,

Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Kampus Ulu Pauh, 02600 Arau, Perlis, Malaysia
Phone: +604-988 5035, Fax: +604-988 5034, Email: humaizi@unimap.edu.my
4

Jabatan Kejuruteraan Mekanikal

Fakulti Kejuruteraan, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia, Kem Sungai Besi, 57000, Kuala Lumpur
Phone: +603-90513400/4539/4509, Fax: +603-90513472, Email: rosdzimin@upnm.edu.my
The purpose of this paper is to present a new DFMA software
that is created in Bahasa Melayu. The software was developed
to assist in teaching the subject Design for Manufacture and
Assembly for undergraduate students. The software is created
using Visual Basic and MySQL. The software is based on
Boothroyd Dewhurst DFMA methodology. Currently, teaching
this subject uses manual procedure which is time consuming
but it helps to strengthen the foundation of Boothroyd
Dewhurst method. The software saves up to 97% of the time
needed for manual procedure. This software is developed in
Bahasa Melayu to differentiate it from the official Boothroyd
Dewhurst software and any other software related. Even
though the contents are in Malay, there are also English
translation as most terms are familiar in English. Since the
university had yet to obtain Boothroyd Dewhurst software, the
author refer its content with the promo version of the original
Boothroyd Dewhurst software that was supplied by vendors.
Keywords DFMA, Visual Basic, MySQL, Boothroyd
Dewhurst, Concurrent Engineering.

I. INTRODUCTION
The term DFMA comes with the combination of
DFA (Design for Assembly) and DFM (Design of
Manufacturing). The basic concept of it is that the design
engineers apply the DFMA paradigm or software to
analyze the manufacturing and assembly problems at the
early design stage. By this means, all of considerations
about the factors that affect the final outputs occur as early
as possible in the design cycle. The extra time spent in the
early design stage is much less the time that will be spent
in the repeatedly redesign. The cost will be reduced when
designer uses DFMA software [1,6]. This will also
affected the increase of quality and efficiency of the whole

processes and manpower [2] and also

manufacturing processes and assembly [15].

improve

There are a few methods of DFMA available such as

Boothryd Dewhurst, Hitachi Assemblability and LucasHull. The focus of the software is Boothryd Dewhurst
method [14].
Design for Manufacture and Assembly requires skill
and ability to understand technical drawings, part
characteristics, parts insertion, part degrees of freedom and
part handling [12]. It requires special ability and time
consume to understand these method. Not all Malaysian
manufacture able to use DFMA in their product design
development especially small and medium industries. The
cost of having such method requires high investment
especially to buy appropriate imported software which
costs more than RM20,000 to RM25,000 per license per
computer exclude training. The other reason of this
problem is the degree of understanding English language
of some designer is low. This is due to their educational
background used to apply Malay language as their
technical language.
The software developed by Boothroyd Dewhurst is
compact. It seems easy to apply with user friendlys
graphical icons but it produce complicated maneuver along
the screen and not in sequence. This may have difficulties
for the designers in applying the knowledge and takes time
to get use of it. Besides that, the designer requires more
time in order to analyze parts of an assembly and
sometimes required days to complete the analysis.

iDECON 2010 International Conference on Design and Concurrent Engineering

Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM)
20-21 September 2010

To date, many higher institutions use Boothroyd

Dewhurst DFMA software in the relevant subjects.
However the institution has not yet acquires the software.
The teaching method is done manually. The student uses
pen, pencils and papers to sketch and make analysis.
Therefore it is difficult to do Design for Manufacture and
Assembly manually and takes some times to understand it.
Suggestion to overcome this problem is to develop DFMA
software in Bahasa Melayu which is presented in this
paper.
In this software, users will not see any calculations and
command. User will select appropriate instructions,
answering questions and obtain the results in terms of
efficiencies of the design, efficiency or redesign parts,
suggested material selection and suggested manufacturing
process to be done.
The aim of this project is to develop DFMA Software in
Bahasa Melayu using Boothroyd Dewhurst methodology.
We measure time taken for analysis to compare manual
analysis method with the DFMA Software in Bahasa
Melayu. The effectiveness of DFMA Software compare
with DFMA method manually are also measured.
Visual Basic is developed based on the BASIC
Programming language [3,5]. The use of Visual Basic can
be upgraded into web-based as part of further
improvement [4, 10].

software applied by a number of students. This reflects

their capability of understanding both languages
engineering English and technical Malay language in
applying DFMA analysis.
The analysis employs a number of students who have
good understanding in DFMA analysis Boothroyd
Dewhurst methodology. A number of sub-assembly parts
of 6 products were analyzed. The variance of pasts given
to be analyzed proves their ability to understand DFMA
analysis.
Time measurement was taken for conventional DFMA
analysis and analysis done using DFMA Software in
Bahasa Melayu. This response to their ability to
understand engineering English terms and translate it to
technical Malay words.
In order to gain feedback from the user, questionnaires
were distributed. The questions consists of how the
software solve design problems, the ability of technical
language understanding, steps to insert data to the
software, further training requirement, time comparison of
both manual procedure and using software, requirement of
understanding tables, ergonomics & user friendly and a
few open ended questions which related to further
improvement.
Phase 1

The authors claim that the software development takes

almost a year to build. The development consists of
identifying types of software and database can be used
which can be integrated with each other. Modifications of
software design are done in order to reduce time of
inserting appropriate data. Testing the software was done
by the end user. Identify any area for improvement in the
software. Lastly, survey questions were distributed to
those who test the software to facilitate their views on the
software for further studies.

Literature review on
DFMA and related
Study the appropriate
software to be use
Software development
using Visual Basic &
Modification of the
software design to ease

Phase 2
II. Software Architecture
The software development consists of 2 parts. The
programming used powerful features such as graphical
user interface (GUI), object-oriented features, error
handling structured programming and etc. It eases
programmer in the software development [1]. The software
requires database system in order to match a series of
materials and processes. The database also useful in terms
of applying specific computations to obtain efficiency.
At the end of software development, testing procedure
was made. The test conducted in order to compare the
application of DFMA in manual method against DFMA

Start

Software application
testing to the students
Improvement

Discussion and
Conclusion
End

Figure 1: A flow chart of DFMA Software in Bahasa

Melayu.

iDECON 2010 International Conference on Design and Concurrent Engineering

Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM)
20-21 September 2010

A. Development of DFMA Software In Bahasa Melayu

The software developments consist of developing of two
major forms namely, Design for Manufacture (DFM) form
and Design for Assembly (DFA) form in Visual Basic.
Visual Basic is a programming language based on
Microsoft Windows. It is created in Integrated
Development Environment (IDE) which permits the
programmer to construct, run and debug its programs
handily [1].
B. DFA form development
All essential element required in DFA were allocated in
the software in appropriate sequence. This includes the
general information of parts, rotation symmetrical, manual
handling and manual insertion.
The DFA form consists of two major sections. The first
section is the raw material selection. Choosing the right
material is the foundation of a good design. The second
section is the machines and processes used to work the raw
material. The right process is essential for creating finished
parts that will meet the design requirements [6].

understanding steps without having problem in

maneuvering the screen, calculations to be made and miss
match table rows and columns.
The use of Operator Precedence in Visual Basic by
applying arithmetic expressions in a sequence determined
by rules similar to those followed in algebra. This is
important in computing some simple application by
entering numbers and automatically results will appear
without ask to calculate. This shortened user time taken to
make any computation.
Based on the Shape Generation Capabilities of Processes
table, General Shape Attributes have been appointed in
order to select the appropriate material with selected
attributes in form of hardware command. When some
attributes were selected by the user, MySQL will compile
related materials and prioritized accordingly before
displaying it. The overlapped or same materials will not
shown repeatedly and only display the most selected parts.
This will assure user to select the most appropriate process
to be done. The same process occurred in selecting
process. This will reduce time to refer the tables.

The use of Command Buttons, ComboBox and Option

Buttons in Visual Basic ease the programmer in entering
commands. The user require to click related information
rather than spending more time to type.

Figure 3. DFM in Bahasa Melayu

D. Database development

Figure 2. DFA in Bahasa Melayu

C. DFM form development
The Forms Layout window were designed in such way
to ease students in following steps as same as taught in
their lecture. The Form Layout window consists of an
image representing the screen and the forms relative
location on the computer screen. This facilitates students

A database is a collection of data that is organized so

that its contents can easily be accessed, managed, and
updated. Database is used in DFA in order to repeat
command where parts to be assembled must be analyzed
and recorded. It is a waste to develop software that
requires huge space in order to do repeating command [16]
MySQL is used as a database to analyze manufacturing
processes and material used in DFM and database for parts
assembled. The development was made based on Design
Rules for Assembly-oriented Product Design [13]. The
correlations of these two analyses were formulated in order

iDECON 2010 International Conference on Design and Concurrent Engineering

Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM)
20-21 September 2010

to choose a number of processes and materials highly

recommended for manufacture. The database also being
used in DFA to formulate Operational Time, Operational
Costs and efficiency before and after improvement made.

Estimated Assembly Time. EM is defined as the ideal

assembly time divided by the estimated assembly time.
(6)
All calculations were not displayed on the screen but
embedded in MySQL database. The only numbers appear
and displayed on the main software is the results.

Table 1. DFM database using MySQL

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In DFA the calculation used is simple where

programmer has to calculate value of part orientation and
symmetry. and is important to determine manual
handling options.
+
(1)
where,
symmetry is the largest angle a part would have
to be turned about an axis perpendicular to the insertion
axis.
symmetry is the largest angle the part would
have to be rotated about the insertion axis for mating

The analysis consists of two tests conducted in terms

of finding differences between manual methods of
DFMA and by using software which have been
developed. This also includes the comprehending of
technical Malay Language compare with Technical
English which they used in the Engineering field. A
number of 6 parts with 3 sub-assemblies were identified
and tested by 20 students. This requires 16 parts to be
analyzed. The reason only 3 sub-assemblies were used
in the analysis is due to time constrain to analyze all
parts. The higher number of sub-assemblies to be
analyze the higher time required to finish the analysis.
Six parts related in this analysis are shown in table
below:
Table 2. Parts and sub-assembly used in the analysis
Sub-assemblies

Operation Time of each part

Operation Time = number of item x (manual
insert time + manual handling time)
(2)

Assembly Time, TM is determined by summing the

handling and insertion times.
TM=N x (HT +IT)

(4)

Where;
N= the number of items the operation is carried
out
HT = Manual Handling Time / part
IT = Manual Insertion Time / code
The Assembly Efficiency.
3 x ( estimation Minimum Time / Operation
Time)
(5)

Parts

Assembly Costs (CM) proportional to TM by a factor that

accounts for wage rate and overheads.
CM = (RM/sec X 104)
(3)

Bottom
Cover
Body

Clicker

Marker Pen

Top
cover
Cap

Milk Container
Kettle

Pin

Cover

Eye Glasses

frame

Lens

Plug

Head
cover

Pin

Cord
Grip
Side
frame
Switch

Mouse

Ink
stick

For preliminary, the parts are tested to analyze

Design for Assembly (DFA) in two conditions. Times
were taken to differentiate conventional method and
software application. The results were taken based on
average time taken to finish up the analysis of parts
given.

iDECON 2010 International Conference on Design and Concurrent Engineering

Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM)
20-21 September 2010
Table 3. Results of DFA using conventional method

Total average time taken 20 students to analyze all

18 components is approximately 3.92 hours which
nearly 4 hours.

Figure 4. Time comparison of DFMA analysis manually vs

DFMA Software in Bahasa Melayu Analysis
A. Survey Questions

Table 4. Results of DFA using DFMA Software in Bahasa

Melayu Embeded in My SQL

The purpose of survey is to obtain differences between

manual and computer based DFMA Analysis application.
This is to prove that the computer analysis eased analysis
and reduce time efficiently.
Each student was given a survey form in order to transmit
their feelings and experienced applying DFMA manually
and using this Software. The survey comprises a total of
19 selective questions. Almost all of the questions are
focused on the software. Only four questions were asked
based on their experience on DFMA analysis in manual
method.

Table 5.

Overall Results of DFA using DFMA software in

Bahasa Melayu

Time taken for DFMA Software in Bahasa Melayu

is incredibly good. It takes 6.23 minutes to analyze all
16 parts.
As a comparison of DFMA manual analysis with
DFMA Software in Bahasa Melayu authors have found
there are significant differences between these two
methods. Time variance shows 3.8 hours difference.
To show the efficiency of the analysis is done. This
shows the percentage differences between manual
analysis with analysis being done using software.
time analyze DFMA manually & software 100
time taken to analyze DFMA using software
(7)
Efficiency = 97.2%

The level of difficulties of the answers are based on

numbers comprises of 1 to 5; where the lowest number is
the lowest, not most difficult, not necessarily used while
the highest number is the highest, easiest level, highly
necessary, least time taken.
The questions asked based on their experience, level of
understanding of both methods, level of difficulties of both
application, language proficiency, the format arrangement,
instructions to ease flow, time taken to finish each tasks,
the requirement of formulas, graphics and psychological
aspects.
IV.

CONCLUSION

DFMA in Bahasa Melayu software was developed in

order to ease any users not necessarily engineers. All level
of people can apply this software in order to decide
appropriate processes and what materials to be made for a
part in a company. This can minimize overall time and
overall costs and increase profits. Even though this
software is simple and easy to use, there still room of
improvement to be made from time to time. Improvement
can be made in many perspectives including time,
psychological issue, length of instructions, hardware and
software selection and others.

iDECON 2010 International Conference on Design and Concurrent Engineering

Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM)
20-21 September 2010

The software is important in a way for a designer to

work against tight work schedule. It is rather easy to be
used and not require longer time to use it. In a way of
training purpose, the DFMA Software in Bahasa Melayu
does not required longer time to attend appropriate or
proper training due to the instructions provided in the
software is simple and systematic. The software
efficiency shows 97 percent better of labor efficiency
especially part designers and analysis compare with
manual analysis.
For further improvement, the software can also be
integrates with other Design for X applications [10]. This
can improve industries profitability in terms of getting
better results in their design.
The software is developed using software called
Visual Basic. The instructions can be varies as instructed
by the programmer. Even though this software is not
developed by Computer Engineering student but it is
assumed that engineering students in any higher learner
institutions must have the basic of computer programming
language as their pre-requisites beforehand.
In order to enhance knowledge of computer language,
this programming instruction can be simplified for future
development. For example, the programmer uses a number
of long instructions to develop a simple operation. The
programmer usually uses Case operation in the software.
Therefore, the use of Array command in Visual Basic can
be applying in future development which the instruction
may be shorter.
The software can also be programmed using Visual
Basic.Net [8] and MySQL PHP in order to be used in
computer network in using internet anywhere [4]. In the
mean time the authors is upgrading DFMA Software in
Bahasa Melayu using PHP. In terms of software security,
this software can be secured by applying password and
username in order to allow unauthorized users [5].
The time taken to use this software can be reduces.
Therefore the time of using this software can be optimized
effectively and efficiently. Instructions can be reduces and
the repetitions can be minimized. The user will not be
asked frequently which makes them bored. For instance,
repetition used when user is asked of part orientation in the
main frame and Manual Insertion Frame. More
calculations can be made internally without asking user to
key in instructions or to make unnecessary selections. The
more selections made, the more confusing user will
undergo. This kind of problem requires him or her to made
further thinking before decision can be made. As a result
time loss occurs.
In order to create more interest to the users, more
interactive visual effects can be added such as animated

pictures and narration of processes, Learning Guide Button

for new user and analysis.
DFMA Software in Bahasa Melayu can be upgraded
and integrate with other Design for X (DFX) Software
application which is useful to the industries nowadays in
terms of Quality and Productivity excellence [9]. This
software has a potential to be commercialized in domestic
market and internationally.
In order to follow parallel with the development of
technology, it is advice to integrate the software with
vision technology. Vision technology requires us to bring
along samples of part to be analyze, focused the part to the
camera. The camera is integrated to the software and
analysis will be taken over. The results are then appears
with the report in a few moment later.
V. CONCLUSION
[1]

Xie, X. (n.d.). Design for Manufacture and Assembly Dept.of

Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah
www.cc.utah.edu/~u0324774/pdf/DFMA.pdf

[2]

Ivr Oos, Design for Manufacture and Assembly to Improve

Efficiency and Quality, Industrial Engineering, 1992

[3]

Boothroyd Dewhrst, http://www.dfma.com/software/dfa.htm

[4]

Deitel H.M Deitel, P.J Deitel, T.R. Nieto, Visual Basic 6: How to
Program. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999

[5]

G.Q Huang, K.L. Mak, Design for Manufacture and Assembly on

the Internet. Journal of Computing in Industry, Volume 38, Issue
1, 17-30, 1999

[6]

Julian Case Bradley, A.C.M , Programming in Visual Basic 6.0.

McGraw Hill, 2007

[7]

Boothroyd Dewhurst., http://www.dfma.com/software/dfa.htm.

[8]

Johnyater. Hubpages Inc. http://hubpages.com/hub/DFMA

[9]

Powel,G. Beginning Database Design. Wiley Publishing Inc. 2006

[10] Tsai-C. Kuo, Samuel H.Huang, Hong-C.Zhang, Design for

Manufacture and Design for X: Concept, Applications and
Perspectives, Journal of Computer in Industrial Engineering, pp.
241 260, 2001.
[11] Patrick, T. The Visual Basic.Net. Prentice Hall, 2002.
[12] Hoekstra, R.L.. Design for Assembly. University of Cincinnati.
1992
[13] H.J Warnecke, R.Bler, Design for Assembly Part of the
Design Process, Annals of the CIRP, 1988
[14] Geoffery Boothroyd, Product Design for Manufacture and
Assembly, Computer-Aided Design Vol 26, pp. 505-519, 1994
[15] Bayoumi, A.M.E. Design for Manufacture and Assembly
(DFMA): Concepts, Benefits and Application. 7th Cairo University
International MDP Conference. pp. 15-17, 2000
[16] Powel, G. Beginning Database Design. Wiley Publishing Inc. 2006.

iDECON 2010 International Conference on Design and Concurrent Engineering

Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM)
20-21 September 2010