For this project groups of five students were set the challenge of re-designing a product for assembly on a manufacturing line. The product would be re-designed using Design For Assembly (DFA) processes. Our team decided to re-design the Strongarm Nerf Pistol.

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The pistol was analysed using both the Boothroyd and Lucas Design for Assembly (DFA) Methods. The primary task was to reduce the number of components in the design. This reduced costs and decreased assembly time and complexity. The original design started with over 80 components and was reduced to under 20 components. Some highlights of the re-design process included:

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• The mechanism which rotated the pistol cylinder was integrated with the barrel.

• Making the trigger rotate the cylinder instead of having an additional component for this

• Removing the need for the grey reload mechanism on the top of the gun

• Making the entire case a single component

• Keeping the outside appearance and style of the gun while reducing the part count

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The images above show the redesign of the pistol and the DFA analysis performed in Excel.