A Market-Based Design Strategy for a Universal Product Family

2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung Ki Moon ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Mass Customization ◽  
Universal Design ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Differentiated Products ◽  
Product Family Design ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Market Segments ◽  
Light Duty

Companies that generate a variety of products and services are creating, and increasing research on, mass-customized products in order to satisfy customers’ specific needs. Currently, the majority of effort is focused on consumers who are without disabilities. The research presented here is motivated by the need to provide a basis of product design methods for users with some disability—often called universal design (UD). Product family design is a way to achieve cost-effective mass customization by allowing highly differentiated products serving distinct market segments to be developed from a common platform. By extending concepts from product family design and mass customization to universal design, we propose a method for developing and evaluating a universal product family within uncertain market environments. We will model design strategies for a universal product family as a market economy where product family platform configurations are generated through market segments based on a product platform and customers’ preferences. A coalitional game is employed to evaluate which design strategies provide more benefit when included in the platform based on the marginal profit contribution of each strategy. To demonstrate an implementation of the proposed method, we use a case study involving a family of light-duty trucks.

A Design Method for Developing a Universal Product Family in a Dynamic Market Environment

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung Ki Moon ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Mass Customization ◽  
Universal Design ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Functional Module ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Product Family Design ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Market Segments

Innovative companies that generate a variety of products and services for satisfying customers’ specific needs are invoking and increasing research on mass-customized products, but the majority of their efforts are still focused on general consumers who are without disabilities. This research is motivated by the need to provide a basis of universal design guidelines and methods, primarily because of a lack of knowledge on disabilities in product design as well as methods for designing and evaluating products for everyone. Product family design is a way to achieve cost-effective mass customization by allowing highly differentiated products to be developed from a common platform while targeting products to distinct market segments. By extending concepts from product family design and mass customization to universal design, we propose a method for developing a universal product family to generate economical feasible design concepts and evaluating design feasibility with respect to disabilities within dynamic market environments. We will model design strategies for a universal product family as a market economy where functional module configurations are generated through market segments based on a product platform. A coalitional game is employed to model module sharing situations regarding dynamic market environments and decides which functional modules provide more benefit when in the platform based on the marginal contribution of each module. To demonstrate implementation of the proposed method, we use a case study involving a family of mobile phones.

Universal Product Family Design Valuation in an Uncertain Market Environment

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung Ki Moon ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Mass Customization ◽  
Universal Design ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Product Family Design ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Financial Model ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Perform Sensitivity Analysis ◽  
Market Trends

Strategic adaptability is essential in capitalizing on future investment opportunities and responding properly to market trends in an uncertain environment. Customized products or services are an important source of revenue for many companies, particularly those working with in a mass customization environment where customer satisfaction is of paramount important. In this paper, we extend methods from mass customization and product family design to create specific methods for universal product family design. The objective of this research is to propose a valuation financial model to facilitate universal design strategies that will maximize the expected profit under uncertain constrains. Real options analysis is applied to estimate the valuation of options related to introducing new modules as a platform in a universal product family. We use customers’ preferences based on performance utilities for universal design to reflect demand and demographic trends. To demonstrate implementation of the proposed model, we use a case study involving a family of light-duty trucks. We perform sensitivity analysis to investigate the behavior of the estimated option value against chaining system parameters.

A Strategic Module-Based Platform Design Method for Developing Customized Products in Dynamic and Uncertain Market Environments

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung Ki Moon ◽  
Timothy W. Simpson ◽  
Soundar R. T. Kumara
Keyword(s):  
Mass Customization ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Design Strategy ◽  
Theoretic Approach ◽  
Product Family Design ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Platform Design ◽  
Design Information

Product family design facilitates mass customization by allowing highly differentiated products to be developed around a platform while targeting products to distinct market segments. Therefore, effective platforming of products is a cost-effective way to achieve mass customization The objective in this research is to develop a Strategic Module-based Platform Design Method (SMPDM) to determine a platform design strategy to support product family design in a dynamic and uncertain environment. Ontologies are used to represent products and enable sharing and reuse of design information. Data mining techniques are used to identify a platform and modules by utilizing design information stored in a large database or repository. To determine a platform for family design in dynamic and uncertain market environments, the SMPDM uses agent-based decision-making, involving a market-based negotiation mechanism and a game theoretic approach based on module-based platform concepts and a mathematical model. To demonstrate and validate the usefulness of the proposed method, it is applied to a family of power tools and tested in multiple scenario-based experiments. The SMPDM provides an optimal platform design strategy that can be adapted to various dynamic and uncertain market environments. Therefore, the SMPDM can help develop design strategies to manage and create a cost-effective variety of products based on a platform in support of mass customization.

A Process Model and Data Mining to Support Designing Families of Services

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung Ki Moon ◽  
Timothy W. Simpson ◽  
Soundar R. T. Kumara
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Process Analysis ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Service Development ◽  
Product Family Design ◽  
New Service Development ◽  
Recent Trends

Product family design is a cost-effective way to achieve mass customization by allowing highly differentiated products to be developed from a common platform while targeting individual products to distinct market segments. Recent trends seek to apply and extend principles from product family design to new service development. In this paper, we extend concepts from platform-based product family design to create a novel methodology for module-based service family design. The new methodology helps identify a service platform along with variant and unique modules in a service family by integrating service-based process analysis, ontologies, and data mining. A function-process matrix and a service process model are investigated to define the relationships between the service functions and the service processes offered as part of a service. An ontology is used to represent the relationships between functional hierarchies in a service. Fuzzy clustering is employed to partition service processes into subsets for identifying modules in a given service family. The clustering result identifies the platform and its modules using a platform level membership function. We apply the proposed methodology to determine a new platform using a case study involving a family of banking services.

Strategic Decisions in the Early Stages of Product Family Design

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan R. A. Maier ◽  
Georges M. Fadel
Keyword(s):  
Product Family ◽  
Product Family Design ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Product Introduction ◽  
Single Product ◽  
Product Families ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Formal Design

Abstract The realization that designing products in families can and does have significant technological and economic advantages over traditional single product design has motivated increasing interest in recent years in formal design tools and methodologies for product family design. However, currently there is no guidance for designers in the first key strategic decisions of product family design, in particular determining the type of product family to design. Hence in this paper, first a taxonomy of different types of product families is presented which consists of seven types of product families, categorized based on number of products and time of product introduction. Next a methodology is introduced to aid designers in determining which type of product family is appropriate, based upon early knowledge about the nature of the intended product(s) and their intended market(s). From this information it also follows both which manufacturing paradigm and which fundamental design strategies are appropriate for the product family. Finally the proposed methodology is illustrated through a case study examining a family of whitewater kayaks.

Optimal Kinematics Design of an Industrial Robot Family

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan O¨lvander ◽  
Xiaolong Feng ◽  
Bo Holmgren
Keyword(s):  
Mass Customization ◽  
Industrial Robot ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Industrial Robots ◽  
Mathematical Framework ◽  
Product Family Design ◽  
Product Families ◽  
The Common ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Common Platform

Product family design is a well recognized method to address the demands of mass customization. A potential drawback of product families is that the performance of individual members are reduced due to the constraints added by the common platform, i.e. parts and components need to be shared by other family members. This paper presents a formal mathematical framework where the product family design problem is stated as an optimization problem and where optimization is used to find an optimal product family. The object of study is kinematics design of a family of industrial robots. The robot is a serial manipulator where different robots share arms from a common platform. The objective is to show the trade-off between the size of the common platform and the kinematics performance of the robot.

A Strategic Platform Design Method for Developing Customized Families of Services

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung Ki Moon ◽  
Jun Shu ◽  
Timothy W. Simpson ◽  
Soundar R. T. Kumara
Keyword(s):  
Mass Customization ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Service Design ◽  
Service Model ◽  
Platform Design ◽  
Banking Services ◽  
Module Selection ◽  
Service Offering

Products are often paired with additional services to satisfy customers’ needs, differentiate product offerings, and remain competitive in today’s market. This research is motivated by the need to provide guidelines and methods to support the design of such services, addressing the lack of knowledge on customized service design as well as methods for designing and evaluating services for mass customization. We extend concepts from module-based product family design to create a method for designing families of services. In particular, we introduce a strategic platform design method for developing customized families of services using game theory to model situations involving dynamic market environments. A module-based service model is proposed to facilitate customized service design and represent the relationships between functions and processes that constitute a service offering. A module selection problem for platform design is considered as a strategic module sharing problem under collaboration, and we use a coalitional game to model module sharing and decide which modules provide more benefit when in the platform based on marginal contribution of each module. To demonstrate implementation of the proposed method, we use a case study involving a family of banking services.

A Method to Design Common Product Platform Based on Structure Matrix Analysis

2011 ◽  
Vol 130-134 ◽  
pp. 2340-2344
Author(s):  
Bin Zhu ◽  
Hong Li
Keyword(s):  
Mass Customization ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Matrix Analysis ◽  
Structure Modeling ◽  
Product Platform ◽  
Product Family Design ◽  
Single Product ◽  
Design Processes ◽  
Structure Matrix ◽  
Implement Strategy

Design for product family is an efficient way to guarantee the idea of mass customization to be implemented successfully. This paper presents an approach to architecting a product family that aims to provide methodological guidance for enterprises which plan to implement strategy of product family design. Based on the conventional methodology of designing for a single product, this paper respectively demonstrates the methods of requirement modeling, function-principle modeling and structure modeling in details according to the characteristics of product family design, and also some key approaches in different design processes are presented.

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