Initial Design Concepts

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A five-member team was commissioned by IBM to establish design concepts for a low-cost printer. The team consisted of both engineers and marketers to establish basic product objectives. They disassembled competitor's products to get ideas and analyze the competition. They were surprised to find that existing low-cost printers consisted of 150 to 200 parts. Furthermore, only about 50 of these were working parts. The rest were rivets, screws, fasteners, cables, belts, pulleys, and springs. These parts are impossible to assemble robotically, so they had to be put together manually. This high labor content made assembly possible only overseas were labor rates are low. The team determined the only way IBM could compete was to remove the labor from the printer by designing for automated assembly (DFAA). Because robots cannot handle screws, parts should snap together. Parts should be eliminated when possible and carry multiple functions to reduce assembly time and complication.

The symbol above became the driving force behind the Proprinter design. It reminded designers to eliminate all pulleys, belts, springs, and screws from their designs.

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Last Updated: October 26, 1998, NEEDS Staff
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