Dispositional mechanisms are chains of relationships in the course of a production sequence. Improper dispositions can lead to degraded or excessively expensive products, while good dispositions can lead to ideal conditions in other areas of the company, and to optimal products. There is a need to isolate dispositional relationship in order to be able to use this very powerful rationalization tool in industry. A number of examples from industrial practice, together with experience from the areas of Design for Assembly, Design for Manufacture and Design for Cost, show that there exist certain important rules for making decisions. These disposition rules knit together different areas of the company, and have great influence on the results of R&D and on the costs which arise in the individual departments. Because of the advantageous effects associated with these factors, there is a need to investigate and isolate dispositional mechanisms, and to show how to handle them in industrial circumstances. This article discusses the nature, type, placing and effects of dispositional mechanisms. Different ways to handle disposition rules, and thus to introduce integration, are presented, and new areas of design science in which efforts should be made are formulated.
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