A Product Family Design Method for Configuration and Spatial Layout Requirements

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
John-Travis Hansen ◽  
David W. Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Design Method ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Complex Problem ◽  
Spatial Layout ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Global Marketplace ◽  
Product Platforms ◽  
Spatial Layouts ◽  
Reducing Costs

Product platforms allow companies to compete in the global marketplace by facilitating product variety and by adding, removing, or substituting components and features across a product family, while reducing costs and lead times. In many cases, developing a common platform involves determining which components are in a product family, their connections, and their spatial layouts. The development of product configurations and layouts is a complex problem and involves both discrete and continuous mathematical processes. This paper presents algorithms and an implementation to address the problem of configuring products and component layouts. The algorithms will describe the processes used to generate the product configurations based on constraints on combinations and the layout of components within the products. The implementation presents software developed to present the algorithms for the configuration and layout processes.

A Product Family Design Method for Configuration and Spatial Layout Requirements

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John-Travis Hansen ◽  
David Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Design Method ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Complex Problem ◽  
Spatial Layout ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Global Marketplace ◽  
Product Platforms ◽  
Spatial Layouts ◽  
Reducing Costs

Product platforms allow companies to compete in the global marketplace by facilitating product variety, by adding, removing, or substituting components and features across a product family, while reducing costs and lead times. In many cases, developing a common platform involves determining which components are in a product family, their connections, and their spatial layouts. The development of product configurations and layouts is a complex problem and involves both discrete and continuous mathematical processes. This paper presents algorithms and an implementation to address the problem of configuring products and component layouts. The algorithms will describe the processes used to generate the product configurations based on constraints on combinations and the layout of components within the products. The implementation presents software developed to present the algorithms for the configuration and layout processes.

scholarly journals Product platform design and customization: Status and promise

2004 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY W. SIMPSON
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Product Platform ◽  
Product Family Design ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Global Marketplace ◽  
Product Families ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Product Platforms

In an effort to improve customization for today's highly competitive global marketplace, many companies are utilizing product families and platform-based product development to increase variety, shorten lead times, and reduce costs. The key to a successful product family is the product platform from which it is derived either by adding, removing, or substituting one or more modules to the platform or by scaling the platform in one or more dimensions to target specific market niches. This nascent field of engineering design has matured rapidly in the past decade, and this paper provides a comprehensive review of the flurry of research activity that has occurred during that time to facilitate product family design and platform-based product development for mass customization. Techniques for identifying platform leveraging strategies within a product family are reviewed along with metrics for assessing the effectiveness of product platforms and product families. Special emphasis is placed on optimization approaches and artificial intelligence techniques to assist in the process of product family design and platform-based product development. Web-based systems for product platform customization are also discussed. Examples from both industry and academia are presented throughout the paper to highlight the benefits of product families and product platforms. The paper concludes with a discussion of potential areas of research to help bridge the gap between planning and managing families of products and designing and manufacturing them.

A Product Variety Tradeoff Evaluation Method for a Family of Cordless Drill Transmissions

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn G. Conner ◽  
Joseph P. De Kroon ◽  
Farrokh Mistree
Keyword(s):  
Evaluation Method ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Product Performance ◽  
Product Platform ◽  
Product Platforms ◽  
Individual Product ◽  
Alternative Product ◽  
Per Se

Abstract In this paper we present the Product Variety Tradeoff Evaluation Method for assessment of alternative product platforms in product family design. The Product Variety Tradeoff Evaluation Method is an attention-directing tool for evaluating tradeoffs between commonality and individual product performance for product platform alternatives with differing levels of commonality. We apply the Product Variety Tradeoff Evaluation Method to a case study in transmission redesign for a family of cordless drills. The emphasis in this paper is placed on the method rather than on the results, per se.

Advancements in a Web-Based Framework in Product Family Optimization and Visualization

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica L. Mulberger ◽  
Timothy W. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Aircraft Design ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
General Aviation ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Product Platforms ◽  
Number Of Customers

Today’s market is becoming increasingly more competitive as companies strive to achieve success by reaching a large number of customers in a mass market while simultaneously treating them as individuals in a customized market. Many companies have begun to appreciate the benefits of using product platforms as they increase the customizability of their offered products, while reducing development costs and time to market. However, product variety is not customization; it is simply an attempt on the part of a company to meet the individual needs of their customers by flooding the market with many variations of the same product. With recent innovations in the field of information technology, web-based product development methodologies provide the capability for advanced customer involvement during the design process, which is a crucial aspect of differentiating customization from variety. Current approaches have provided web-based frameworks where users are offered a limited amount of control in the design process by assembling different configurations of given modules or by choosing a product already available in the company database. The focus in this paper is on advancements to a web-based framework where design parameters are collected from the user by means of a web-based browser interface, optimization is completed using the specified parameters, and a 3D visual representation is dynamically provided based on the results from the optimization. This proposed framework is illustrated using an example from ongoing research involving General Aviation Aircraft design.

Introduction of a Product Family Penalty Function Using Physical Programming

2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Achille Messac ◽  
Michael P. Martinez ◽  
Timothy W. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Penalty Function ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Product Platform ◽  
Product Families ◽  
Physical Programming ◽  
Product Platforms ◽  
Scaling Parameters ◽  
The Common ◽  
Selection Of

In an effort to increase customization for today’s highly competitive global markets, many companies are looking to product families to increase product variety and shorten product lead-times while reducing costs. The key to a successful product family is the common product platform around which the product family is derived. Building on our previous work in product family design, we introduce a product family penalty function (PFPF) in this paper to aid in the selection of common and scaling parameters for families of products derived from scalable product platforms. The implementation of the PFPF utilizes the powerful physical programming paradigm to formulate the problem in terms of physically meaningful parameters. To demonstrate the proposed approach, a family of electric motors is developed and compared against previous results. We find that the PFPF enables us to properly balance commonality and performance within the product family through the judicious selection of the common parameters that constitute the product platform and the scaling parameters used to instantiate the product family.

Two Methodologies for Identifying Product Platform Elements Within an Existing Set of Products

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth D. Steva ◽  
Elizabeth N. Rice ◽  
Tucker J. Marion ◽  
Timothy W. Simpson ◽  
Robert B. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Product Family ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Product Families ◽  
Product Platforms ◽  
Design Structure ◽  
Development Costs ◽  
Family Analysis ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Single Use

As companies are pressured to decrease product development costs concurrently with increasing product variety, the need to develop products based upon common components and platforms is growing. Determining why a platform worked, or alternatively why it did not, is an important step in the successful implementation of product families and product platforms in any industry. Unfortunately, published literature on platform identification and product family analysis using product dissection and reverse engineering methods is surprisingly sparse. This paper introduces two platform identification methodologies that use different combinations of tools that can be readily applied based on information obtained directly from product dissection. The first methodology uses only the Bills-of-Materials and Design Structure Matrices while the second utilizes function diagrams, Function-Component Matrices, Product-Vector Matrices, and Design Structure Matrices to perform a more in-depth analysis of the set of products. Both methodologies are used to identify the platform elements in a set of five single-use cameras available in the market. The proposed methodologies identify the film advance and shutter actuation platform elements of the cameras, which include seven distinct components. The results are discussed in detail along with limitations of these two methodologies.

A Product Platform Concept Exploration Method for Product Family Design

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy W. Simpson ◽  
Jonathan R. A. Maier ◽  
Farrokh Mistree
Keyword(s):  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Product Platform ◽  
Customer Requirements ◽  
Global Marketplace ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Concept Exploration ◽  
Per Se

Abstract Today’s highly competitive, global marketplace is redefining the way companies do business. Many companies are being faced with the challenge of providing as much variety as possible for the market with as little variety as possible between products in order to maintain economies of scale while satisfying a wide range of customer requirements. Developing a family of products — a group of related products derived from a common product platform — provides an efficient and effective means to realize sufficient product variety to satisfy a range of customer demands. In this paper the Product Platform Concept Exploration Method (PPCEM) is presented, providing a Method that facilitates the synthesis and Exploration of a common Product Platform Concept that can be scaled into an appropriate family of products. As an example, the PPCEM is employed to design a family of universal electric motors that are also compared against a benchmark group of individually designed motors. The focus in this paper, however, is on the PPCEM and not on the results, per se.

Cost Effects of Modular Product Family Structures: Methods and Quantification of Impacts to Support Decision Making

2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Ripperda ◽  
Dieter Krause
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Family Structures ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Reducing Costs ◽  
The Cost

Customer demands and global markets prompt companies to offer increasing product variety. The use of modular product structures is a possible strategy for providing the necessary external variety to the market and reducing costs by lowering internal variety within the company. Current research provides several approaches for developing modular product family structures. As modularity is a gradual property, these methods generate different product structure concepts and companies have to decide at an early stage and without detailed information which concepts to implement. Most existing modularization methods offer only little or no support for decision making, particularly in terms of cost effects. This article illustrates the cost effects of variety and modular product family structures, the various cost impacts of variety management strategies and modularization methods in a literature review. A new approach to quantify these cost effects to support concept selection during modular product family design is introduced.

Product Platform Design and Optimization: Status and Promise

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy W. Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Design Research ◽  
Product Family ◽  
Optimization Techniques ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Product Platform ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Global Marketplace ◽  
Platform Design ◽  
Product Families ◽  
Design And Optimization

In an effort to improve customization for today’s highly competitive global marketplace, many companies are utilizing product families to increase variety, shorten lead-times, and reduce costs. The key to a successful product family is the product platform from which it is derived either by adding, removing, or substituting one or more modules to the platform or by scaling the platform in one or more dimensions to target specific market niches. This nascent field of engineering design research has matured rapidly in the past decade, and this paper provides an extensive review of the research activity that has occurred during that time to facilitate product platform design and optimization. Techniques for identifying platform leveraging strategies within a product family are reviewed along with optimization-based approaches to help automate the design of a product platform and its corresponding family of products. Examples from both industry and academia are presented throughout the paper to highlight the benefits of platform-based product development, and the paper concludes with a discussion of promising research directions to help bridge the gap between planning and managing families of products and designing and manufacturing them.

Module Interface Representation

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Bettig ◽  
John K. Gershenson
Keyword(s):  
Product Quality ◽  
Modular Design ◽  
Product Variety ◽  
Design Issues ◽  
Product Platforms ◽  
Number Of Components ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Home Appliance ◽  
Reducing Costs

Modular design issues are receiving increased attention by companies interested in reducing costs from carrying large numbers of components while at the same time increasing product quality and providing customers with greater product variety. Existing research has mainly focused on optimizing product platforms and product offerings, with little attention being given to the interfaces between modules. This research presents an investigation into how module interfaces are best represented in a CAD/PDM environment. The representation decisions are identified and advantages and limitations for each option are presented. Representation decisions revolve around issues such as the use of higher abstraction models, the use of ports, and referencing interface components in interface definitions. We conclude that higher abstraction models are necessary, ports should be represented explicitly, and interface hardware should not be included directly with interfaces. The research considers a large number of components from representative products offered by a home appliance manufacturer.

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