5. Design parts for multi-use. In a manufacturing firm, different products can share parts that have been
designed for multi-use. These parts can have the same or different functions when used in different
products. In order to do this, it is necessary to identify the parts that are suitable for multi-use. For
example, all the parts used in the firm (purchased or made) can be sorted into two groups: the first
containing all the parts that are used commonly in all products. Then, part families are created by defining
categories of similar parts in each group. The goal is to minimize the number of categories, the variations
within the categories, and the number of design features within each variation. The result is a set of
standard part families from which multi-use parts are created. After organizing all the parts into part
families, the manufacturing processes are standardized for each part family. The production of a specific
part belonging to a given part family would follow the manufacturing routing that has been setup for its
family, skipping the operations that are not required for it. Furthermore, in design changes to existing
products and especially in new product designs, the standard multi-use components should be used.