Abstract
As a product has become complicated, and its requirements have been diversified, the simultaneous and integrative design of a series of products has become so important. However, the contents of design activities have become complex across product variety and supply chain. This paper views such a situation through a chain of parts, intermediate products, and final products, and focuses on the lineup design problem of an intermediate product. The lineup design means here to secure the worst-case performance of intermediate products across a range of specifications. The problem is formulated as a mathematical problem to maximize the worst-case efficiency, i.e., the minimum efficiency of products across the range by arranging commonalization strategy, segmentation of the range, and original design variables. This paper proposes a two-phase approach, designing a framework, and optimizing contents under the framework. The latter phase is formulated as a nested mini-max optimization problem. An effective and efficient optimization scheme is configured with employing monotonicity analysis. Finally, an application to universal motors is demonstrated for ascertaining the validity and promises of the proposed design method.
