Kankaanpää Unit - Projects

Manufacturability and costs of wearable electronics

Work done: 2004
Extent of work: Diploma thesis, Research the manufacturability of wearable electronics
Co-operation with Clothing Plus Oy
Results: Guidelines how to simplify the construction of product and assembly work
Contact: Tapio Karinsalo

Manufacturability and costs of wearable electronics was Master of Science thesis project. The project focused on researching what are the demands of designing and implementation of electronics especially wearable electronics in view of manufacturability and assembly. Combining textiles and electronics also brings new challenges to the manufacturability. The impact of design to cost of end product was also interesting.

When designing new electronics it is good to know how it will be produced and keep it in mind through the whole design process. Without knowing how electronics will be manufactured we can´t design electronics which is cost effective to manufacture. Cost of electronics will be comprised of material, labour, administration, depreciations and so on. Quantity of electronics influences how these costs will be directed to type of cost. Bigger quantity will direct more cost to materials and labor. Manufacturability of product will be more important when manufacturing is done automatically in production line.

Nowadays there are two terms "Design For Manufacturing" and "Design For Assembly" which are used when new product design starts. Design for manufacturing includes guidelines and procedures which simplify product’s manufacturing and reduce costs. Design for assembly keeps inside guidelines how to simplify the construction of product and simplify assembly work. This method for example tries to reduce the amount of components in product.

Links and other info:

Karinsalo, Tapio (2004) Manufacturability and costs of wearable thermometer. Master of science thesis, Tampere University of Technology, Department of Automation, Tampere

Updated , Hokkanen Mirja