Design for Production

Extract

The title of the paper infers that, in general, aircraft design is not fundamentally suitable for production and, for various reasons, design for quick and easy production must be the result of compromise. In practice optimum design and easy production never seem to coincide exactly. Refinement of design for production covers many broad conceptions.

In its broadest sense it should be the uppermost consideration from the very beginning of the design of the prototypes. The primary object of designing any new aircraft, civil or military, is to be able to produce a series of the most efficient fully approved and tested production aircraft at the highest possible rate in the shortest possible time. The first part of the paper, therefore, deals with the design and production planning phases of a new aircraft when, by joint consultation with the production departments, the design is viewed from the production angle from the outset.