Tariff-Proof by Design: How DFMA Shields Your Business in Turbulent Trade Times

Keith Gilligan
Executive Vice President

April 3, 2025

President Donald Trump’s recent “Liberation Day” tariff announcement – a flat 10% duty on all imports, plus steeper “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of nations (New Trump tariffs fuel concern among business owners and industry groups - CBS News) – sent a shockwave through boardrooms. Companies across industries are once again worrying about where to build and source their products. In an era of whiplash-inducing trade policies, many business leaders feel at the mercy of geopolitics. But there is one strategy firmly under your control: design your products to be inherently resilient. In particular, Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) is emerging as a “tariff-proof” strategy that can safeguard profitability no matter where your supply chain shifts. This article explains why DFMA remains a winning playbook for manufacturers navigating tariffs, reshoring, or any global supply shake-up.

What is DFMA and Why It Works Everywhere

Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) is a design methodology that prioritizes ease of manufacturing and assembly from the very beginning of product development. In practice, this means simplifying product designs – reducing the number of parts, using standard components, and streamlining how those parts fit together. The goal is to make products as easy, fast, and cost-effective to build as possible. By minimizing complexity, DFMA cuts out waste in production and ensures that both manufacturing and assembly processes are optimized in unison.

This approach is widely used across industries – from automotive and aerospace to electronics and consumer goods – because its benefits are universal. Fewer parts and simpler assembly mean lower labor and material costs, shorter assembly times, and fewer opportunities for errors, yielding more reliable products. Importantly for executives, DFMA isn’t just an engineering tactic; it’s a business strategy that directly impacts the bottom line. On average, companies that embrace DFMA see part counts drop by ~54%, assembly time cut by ~60%, and overall manufacturing costs reduced by about 50%. These are staggering improvements that translate to greater profit margins and flexibility.

Crucially, DFMA’s benefits hold true regardless of where you manufacture. Whether your factory is in Shanghai or St. Louis, a product designed with fewer, simpler parts will be cheaper and easier to produce. That means DFMA “travels well” – it makes your product design robust to changes in labor costs, supplier locations, or trade policies. In contrast, a highly complex product that’s been tolerable only because of ultra-cheap overseas labor can become a headache if tariffs or other factors force production to move. DFMA flips that script by designing out unnecessary complexity from the start.

Fewer Parts, Fewer Problems (and Fewer Tariff Headaches)

One of the core tenets of DFMA is “reduce part count.” Every part in a product comes with costs: it must be sourced (from a supplier that could be overseas), shipped, handled, inspected, and assembled. By eliminating redundant or unnecessary components, DFMA slashes these costs and also shrinks the supply chain footprint of your product. Fewer parts mean fewer suppliers to manage, fewer import shipments to coordinate, and fewer items subject to tariffs. As one expert succinctly put it, “The best part is the one that you’re not buying, and DFMA helps you get rid of parts.” (DFMA Practices Can Play a Role in Manufacturing Reshoring)

In fact, according to data from Boothroyd Dewhurst Inc. (pioneers of DFMA), labor typically accounts for only about 4% of a product’s total cost, while parts and materials make up roughly 72%. Chasing the lowest labor cost by offshoring yields diminishing returns if your design has bloated part count and material costs. Cutting out 30%, 50%, or more of the parts through DFMA can save far more money than shaving a few dollars off labor – and it makes you far less vulnerable to a 10% or 20% import tariff on each of those parts.

Consider a simple example: Imagine a device originally designed with 100 components sourced from ten different suppliers in three countries. A trade war or tariff policy shift targeting one of those countries could jeopardize 20–30 of the components, stalling production or raising costs. Now imagine a DFMA redesign that integrates functions and trims the design down to fifty components. Not only would assembly be faster, but you’d also potentially cut the supplier base in half – meaning half the exposure to tariff or logistics disruptions.

Indeed, many companies have achieved such streamlining. Whirlpool (appliances) used DFMA methods and was able to reduce part count by 29% on a product, cutting assembly time by 26% in the process. Fewer parts and quicker assembly gave Whirlpool more flexibility to source or build that product in different locations without cost penalties. In another case, International Game Technologies (IGT) redesigned their equipment with DFMA and saved 40% on parts and assembly costs – a huge cost cushion against any new tariffs or import fees. These examples show that simpler designs directly equate to leaner, more resilient supply chains.

Simplified Assembly = Flexible Production

DFMA doesn’t stop at part reduction; it also simplifies the assembly process for whatever parts remain. This is key to making your manufacturing location-agnostic. When products are easy to assemble – with self-aligning parts, minimal fasteners, and foolproof (mistake-proof) designs – you have far more options in who and where you assemble them. You can automate assembly or use less-skilled labor without quality issues, or rapidly train a new workforce in a different factory if needed. In DFMA lingo, the design is “robust” to different assembly conditions.

Designing for easy assembly (like this press-fit operation) means products can be built with less specialized labor and tooling. Simplified assembly processes give manufacturers more flexibility to shift production across facilities or regions on short notice. By simplifying assembly steps and using standard, modular designs, DFMA makes it feasible to shift production closer to your market or across borders when circumstances demand. Many companies learned in recent years that having assembly concentrated in one low-cost country can be a single point of failure – whether due to tariffs, pandemics, or natural disasters. A DFMA-optimized product is much easier to “pick up and move” to another plant because it doesn’t rely on unique local skills or complex work instructions.

One study found that 75–90% of a product’s manufacturing cost is locked in by design decisions made in the first 5–10% of development. In other words, if you design a product that practically assembles itself, you’re free to manufacture it anywhere with minimal headaches. This flexibility is the essence of being tariff-proof: you can respond to tariffs or trade barriers by reshoring or re-routing your assembly operations without a total redesign.

Real-world success stories bear this out. Harley-Davidson, for example, faced shifting trade winds when the EU retaliated against U.S. tariffs by imposing duties on American motorcycles. Harley decided to move some production overseas to avoid those tariffs – a costly move for a complex product. However, Harley also had an ace up its sleeve: an ongoing DFMA initiative. Along with companies like Dell and Whirlpool, Harley’s engineering teams achieved cost reductions around 50% and cut part counts by more than half through DFMA improvements. Those kinds of dramatic savings give a manufacturer breathing room to absorb tariffs or the costs of moving production.

Similarly, Motorola applied DFMA to one of its laptop computer lines and reduced the number of parts by 36% in just 90 days, sharply lowering assembly labor and cost. Moves like these enable a company to shift assembly from, say, China to Mexico or to the U.S., and still remain cost-competitive because the product simply doesn’t take as much time or effort to put together.

Resilience by Design: DFMA as a Geopolitical Insurance Policy

The beauty of DFMA is that it makes your supply chain resilient by design. In a world where trade policies can change with a tweet (or a new administration), DFMA lets you design products that can roll with the punches. By standardizing components and designing for modular assembly, you can qualify multiple suppliers (in different regions) for key parts and swap them with minimal disruption. By reducing reliance on hard-to-source parts or esoteric subassemblies, you avoid being tied to a single country or vendor. Essentially, DFMA gives you optionality: the product can be manufactured in different ways or places without requiring a redesign.

Let’s connect the dots explicitly to tariffs and geopolitics. When Trump’s tariffs hit, many firms scrambled to consider reshoring manufacturing back to the U.S. or sourcing from tariff-exempt countries. Companies that had simpler, DFMA-optimized products found this decision a lot easier. Why? Because relocalizing production often means higher labor or setup costs – but if your product only takes half the labor to assemble thanks to DFMA, the math suddenly works out. DFMA has been cited as a critical enabler for reshoring precisely for this reason. Harry Moser, founder of the Reshoring Initiative, notes that many offshoring decisions were based on misguided cost models that ignored hidden costs like duties, freight, and inventory. DFMA helps eliminate those hidden costs by cutting parts (less inventory, less freight) and reducing assembly effort (less labor and overhead.) The result is that manufacturing domestically (or in any preferred location) becomes much more economically viable – even before accounting for avoiding tariffs.

In short, DFMA shrinks the cost gap between manufacturing in a low-cost country and a high-cost country, making you far less vulnerable to tariffs that target that gap. Even when global trade disruptions aren’t in the headlines, DFMA yields resilience. Supply chain snags can come from natural disasters, political instability, or sudden demand spikes. A product with 200 parts sourced globally is inherently more fragile than one with 80 parts that can be sourced regionally. By designing resilience into the product, DFMA acts as an insurance policy against the unexpected. You’re not just saving pennies on the assembly line – you’re building a supply chain that can withstand shocks. As the old saying in engineering goes, “simpler is stronger.”

DFMA: A Winning Strategy in Any Trade Climate

As a business leader or executive, it’s easy to feel buffeted by external forces like tariffs, trade wars, or pandemics. Those macro factors will always be outside your full control. DFMA is a strategy squarely within your control – and it pays off in good times and bad. When trade conditions are stable, DFMA drives cost efficiency, quality, and speed to market. When trade conditions become volatile, DFMA gives you the agility to adapt without sacrificing profitability or product quality. It’s not hyperbole to call DFMA “tariff-proof”; it immunizes much of your cost structure from the whims of trade policy by making that cost structure fundamentally lean and flexible.

Moreover, DFMA’s benefits extend across the product life cycle. Fewer parts and simpler assemblies mean easier maintenance, fewer warranty issues, and faster product development cycles. (In fact, companies have reported 45% shorter development times alongside major cost savings – a boon when you need to pivot quickly.) All these advantages contribute to a business that can weather storms and seize opportunities faster than competitors. It’s no surprise that industry leaders like Dell, Boeing, Whirlpool, and others have institutionalized DFMA into their design processes. They know that in a world of uncertainty, investing in smarter design yields a more predictable, robust outcome.

A Quick Recap – Why DFMA Makes You Tariff-Proof

• Dramatically Lower Unit Costs: DFMA typically cuts product cost by 20–50%. This creates a cushion to absorb added tariff expenses without devastating your margins.
• Reduced Part Count: Simplifying a design by eliminating parts reduces exposure to any single source or country. Fewer parts = fewer tariff codes and fewer imports to worry about.
• Simplified, Flexible Assembly: Products designed for easy assembly can be built anywhere – enabling quick shifts to avoid tariffs (e.g. moving assembly to a tariff-free country or back onshore) with minimal efficiency loss.
• Multi-Sourcing & Supplier Agility: DFMA encourages use of standard components and modular design, making it easier to source parts from alternate suppliers or regions if trade barriers emerge.
• Faster Response Time: With leaner designs and often shorter development cycles, companies using DFMA can redesign or adapt products faster if a tariff regime calls for a component change or new local content requirement.

In conclusion, DFMA turns product design into a strategic advantage for supply chain and sourcing decisions. When you’ve designed a product to be manufactured and assembled with maximum efficiency, you’ve inherently made it more resilient to tariffs, trade policy swings, and geopolitical disruptions. Whether the next curveball is a tariff hike, a trade agreement collapse, or a spike in labor costs abroad, DFMA ensures you have options. You can build in Texas or Taiwan – wherever makes sense – with confidence that your cost structure is optimized and your quality will hold up.

For executives mapping out contingency plans in today’s uncertain climate, DFMA is a smart investment in agility and peace of mind. It’s about controlling the controllables. You may not sway government policy, but you can design and build better than ever. By championing DFMA principles in your organization, you’ll not only drive immediate efficiencies, but also future-proof your operations against whatever the global economy throws your way. In short, design smarter, build better, and let the tariffs fall where they may – your business will be ready.