Product Development Teams and Tools Applied to the Aircraft Industry

Abstract

Provides insight into using integrated product development (IPD) teams, design for assembly (DFA) and design for manufacturability (DFM) for aircraft design. Aircraft structure is very complex and has large quantities of fasteners (100,000 plus for fighter aircraft, 1 million plus for large commercial aircraft). Applying DFA reduces parts/fasteners, which in turn reduces the number of opportunities for defects. Describes the application of design‐for‐six‐sigma‐manufacturability (DFM) to aircraft structure which additionally reduces defects during production.