Design for Manufacture, Assembly, Process Improvement Expert Consultant

• Aerospace
• Appliance
• Automotive
• Manufacturing

This consultant received a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Valparaiso University.

Design for Manufacture, Assembly, Process Improvement Expert Consultant

This expert has experience in the fields of design for manufacture and assembly, training, product analysis, and conceptual design. Additional expertise includes mechanical design and analysis, creative design, and probabilistic methods.

This consultant's specializations include optimization, simulation, stress, dynamic, and vibration. Furthermore, this associate has experience in heat transfer analysis and is an expert witness. This consultant offers expertise specific to design methods and systems, training and application of design methods such as DPA, FMEA, and value analysis. Other areas of expertise inlcude the Taguchi method, rouse of quality, Six Sigma, new product introduction, and process improvement. This expert also has experience in the fields of modern methods and practices and product design methods and practices.

This associate is knowledgeable in areas including managing the design-manufacturing, casting design, introduction to manufacturing and design, and design for manufacture. Additional experience includes cost drivers in sand casting design, tool path selection for sand casting, and rapid tooling for sand casting using laminated object manufacturing process. Furthermore, the consultant also has expertise in aluminum casting design, issues and practices, and dimensional variability analysis in post-processing of rapid tooling.

Additional areas of expertise include design for total product quality, rapid tooling error analysis for sand casting, design for quality and life-cycle manufacture, and coordinated product and fixture design. The consultant specialties also include strategies for robust product design, simultaneous engineering in the conceptual design phase, producibility measurement, and key to the design of producible products.

Other areas of interest include artificial intelligence and mechanical design, automation, teacher and test for good product design, and machine intelligence in machine design. This consultant also has experience in workshop summary, quick-operating fastener design for high-preload applications, and methodology for track fastening system design.

This expert has conducted numerous studies in areas including systematic design of deployable space structures, centroidal attachment design for near-term large space structures, theoretical and experimental investigation of frictional phenomena in high capacity gear drives, and investigation of a method to provide motion synchronization during submersible retrieval.

Consultant, Kevin Kennedy Associates Inc.

Design Engineering Consultant

Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

Technical Director and Senior Consultant, Square D Company, Palatine, IL

Manager, Design for Manufacture Section, Industrial Technology Institute, Ann Arbor, MI

Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Platteville, WI

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX

Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL

Naval Ship Engineering Center, Washington, DC

The Boeing Company, Seattle, WN

Xerox Corporation, Rochester, NY

Worked with design and development of optical-mechanical system.

CONSULTING

Clients included Northrop Grumman, Electronic Systems Division, Bell and Howell, Postal, Systems Inc., ESAB Welding and Cutting, Iomega Corporation, OSRAM Sylvania, Baxter Healthcare, Inc. Renal Division, Ethicon, Inc., Elastimold Division of Thomas and Betts, Inc., Nxtphase, Inc., Summit Industries, Inc.

Developed and presented more than 75 DFM/A workshops to more than 40 different companies such as Square D, Whirlpool, Chrysler, Lockheed, Navistar, Siemens, Bell and Howell, and Northrop-Grumman.

Developed and presented specialized design methodology training to clients such as Square D, GE, and Corning. Applied design methodologies such as DFA and FMEA to numerous product design and manufacturing projects.

Developed and implemented special purpose design systems such as a CAD based fixture design system, a design for injection molding expert system, and an automated order engineering system.

Performed mechanical design and analysis of fastening systems, space structures, sheet metal forming, etc. to clients such as Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and John Deere.

Developed a general purpose design tool based on numerical heat transfer techniques for analyzing and controlling temperature rise occurring along the current conducting paths of complex electrical distribution and control equipment.

Developed a dynamic force analysis and computer simulation for use in the design and analysis of over-center switch mechanisms. The model accounts for changing geometry, friction effects, tolerance stack-up effects, and other considerations unique to this type of special purpose mechanism.

Developed a general-purpose computer simulation for thermal design/analysis of liquid filled distribution transformers. Oil flow rate is determined using a correlation developed from an accurate numerical solution of the full Navier-Stokes equations with full viscosity-temperature variation.

Served as an expert witness in a variety of patent infringement, intellectual property, product liability, and other legal cases. Advised U.S. Magistrate Judge in lawsuit involving complex mechanical equipment.

Design For Efficient Manufacture
Creative Problem Solving
Eliminate Costly “Test And Fix” Design By Developing A Design “Science Base”