Design for assembly (DFA) analysis of a thermostat housing.

The paper presents the analysis carried out on an automobile sub-assembly to identify any scope of improvement in the design from the viewpoint of its assembly. The paper demonstrates the successful application of DFA techniques through the Boothroyd Dewhurst DFA method and the DFA Analysis worksheet developed by Cummins's tools. We used Design for Assembly (DFA) principles as a tool to analyze the design of the "Thermostat housing (Coolant-elbow)". We looked to optimize the subassembly with focus on reducing the number of parts, improving handling and ease of assembly. The sub-assembly over which this analysis is performed is the Thermostat housing (Coolant elbow) of a 4 wheeled production vehicle (Maruti Suzuki Swift). Through the analysis we were able to engineer design changes that generated a sustainable design with 20% reduction in the number of parts, improvements in handling and insertion indexes and reduction of assembly time and cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]