Design for Assembly: An AHP Approach for Automotive Front End Component Design Evaluation

Design for assembly (DFA) is a prominent strategy for manufacturing cost reduction in automotive industries. DFA in automotive component design is a complicated process since several competing targets have to be considered simultaneously in designing various functions and features. It requires specialized design knowledge as well as extensive quantitative analysis, comparison and evaluation. Analytical Hierarchic Process (AHP) is one of the tools that can assist such design and evaluation processes. It has been successfully applied in various processes when multiple competing goals and characteristics are involved. In this paper, we propose the application of AHP for DFA in automotive component design and present a case study involving car front end component design.