What Is DfMA In Industrialized Construction And Why Is It Important?

Industrialized construction is transforming the way we build. By shifting building processes into controlled factory environments, companies are achieving faster project timelines, better quality control, improved efficiency, and greater opportunities for both scalability and repeatability. However, there’s a complexity which is often a hidden barrier to properly reaping the benefits of industrialized construction: DfMA.  

What is DfMA?

DfMA stands for Design for Manufacturing and Assembly. In short, it’s an engineering and design philosophy that aims to make products easier – and more cost-effective – to produce and assemble.

• Design for Manufacturing focuses on ensuring that parts are designed in a way that simplifies and optimizes the manufacturing process. The aim is to use lessons learned from automation in the design phase of your product, to ensure that you can build a streamlined manufacturing process for your design, with minimal complexity, less waste, and lower costs.

• Design for Assembly focuses on ensuring that once your parts have been manufactured, they are easy to put together. Here, the aim is to reduce risks of error during assembly, as well as reducing the number of tools and the amount of labor required for the build.  

When these two ideas are applied successfully together, the result is a product that is not only functional, but smart. Most importantly, a product that can be manufactured and assembled as efficiently as possible.  

How does DfMA work in construction?

In industrialized construction, every detail of a product’s design matters from the very start. Everything needs to be built and assembled with precision – often on a moving production line or in high-repetition cycles.  

And this is where companies can truly reap the rewards of DfMA. When DfMA has been part of the design cycle from the start, the whole production process becomes more streamlined, faster, more efficient, and with less errors and troubleshooting required, leaving more time for quality control and health and safety.  

Why is DfMA critical for industrialized construction success?

Implementing DfMA can have a direct impact on your bottom line across the board:  

1. Cost savings: Smarter designs often mean your production line requires fewer different types of machines and robotics, less customization and less material.  

2. Faster production: A product that has been designed with DfMA in mind often reduces unnecessary complexity in components, which allows machines and people to work more efficiently.  

3. Less waste: A smarter design results in material optimization, reducing off-cuts and unused materials. This has a positive knock-on effect on material costs and inventory control, as well as cleaner stations with less debris.  

4. Health and safety: Designing a product for efficient manufacturing and assembly results in higher automation rates, with machines handling high-risk activities such as heavy lifting or repetitive motions, leaving your personnel to handle more value-adding tasks.

5. Scalability: A well-designed product using DfMA results in a well-designed manufacturing system which is easier to scale as demand grows. You can build more and build faster, without sacrificing quality.  

How can Triweco help?

At Triweco, we don’t just build machines – we help you design for manufacturability and assembly, and ensure our machines optimize your manufacturing process. During the design phase at the start of every Triweco project, we work directly with our customers’ product design teams to ensure components are designed to be automation-friendly from the beginning, ensuring a smoother and more predictable journey from design to production.

DfMA is more than a buzzword – it’s one of the most important factors to ensure that your industrialized construction is faster, smarter and more scalable. We’ve seen firsthand the benefits of ensuring DfMA is part of your process from the very beginning (and we’ve also seen the pitfalls when it’s not..). Get in touch and let’s discuss how DfMA can help you achieve your goals.

‍