Abstract
With product customization companies aim at creating higher customer value and stronger economic
benefits. The profitability of the offered variety relies on the quality of the developed product family
architectures and their consistent implementation in configuration systems. Yet existing methods are
informal, providing limited support for domain experts to communicate, synthesize and document
architectures effectively. In single product design explicit visual models such as design structure
matrices and node-link diagrams have been used in combination with structural analysis methods to
overcome the limitation of the informal approach. Drawing on thereto established best practises, this
paper evaluates and extends the relevant methods and modelling techniques, to create a consistent and
formal approach for the design and customization of entire product families. To validate it’s applicability,
the approach is tested on a case study at a manufacturing company offering bespoke industrial
applications. A generic modelling method termed the integrated design model (IDM) is developed and
complemented with a computational structural analysis method, to assist domain experts in their daily
work. When combined with a configuration system, the presented IDM tool automates the
documentation and formalizes the synthesis of architectures, thereby making any decision about a
preferred solution explicit and transparent. ©
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Journal | Computers in Industry |
Volume | 74 |
Pages (from-to) | 58–70 |
ISSN | 0166-3615 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- Product family architecture
- Design synthesis
- Mass customization
- Structural analysis
- Generic modelling