Graph Grammar Based Product Variety Modeling
Abstract This paper discusses the issue of product variety modeling, i.e. the means to organize the data of a family of products according to the underpinning logic among them. The targeted product families are characterized by providing user-selectable product features and feature values and achieving variety by combining parameterized functional or physical modules. A graph grammar based (GGB) model is proposed for the purpose of enhancing the comprehensiveness and manipulability of the data of product families for different functional departments in a company in order to facilitate effective order processing as well as direct customer-manufacturer interaction. To deal with variety effectively, both structural and non-structural family data are represented as family graphs whereas order-specific products are represented as variant graphs derived by applying predefined graph rewrite rules to the family graphs. The most important characteristics of the GGB model are three folds. While emphasizing the distinctiveness of the information that different users are concerned about, it provides cross view data transferring mechanisms. It also supports data manipulation for variety generation. Finally, taking advantage of the graph grammar based language of PROGRES, GGB is a model to be easily implemented as a visualized computer system. The specification of an office chair product family illustrates the principles and construction process of GGB models.