scholarly journals Development of a Configure-to-Order-Based Process for the Implementation of Modular Product Architectures: A Case Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 2971-2980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Michael Seiler ◽  
Erik Greve ◽  
Dieter Krause
Keyword(s):  
Global Market ◽  
Product Architecture ◽  
Special Equipment ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Modular Architectures ◽  
Market Trends ◽  
Engineer To Order ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
High Degree

AbstractAs todays’ global market trends lead to an increasing demand for individualised products, manufacturers need to cope with a high degree of internal and external variety, which has a severe impact on complexity and therefore -costs. When implementing modular product architectures, it becomes obvious, that the actual Engineer-to-Order (ETO) processes cannot cope with the requirements of such a product architecture. It is crucial to develop a complying Configure-to-Order (CTO) process in order to make full use of its suppled benefits. As there is no existing approach about how to methodically change an existing ETO process into an adequate CTO process, we intend to fill this gap with this paper by showing an approach for the development of a CTO process for modular product architectures. Furthermore, we show the application and evaluation of this approach in a case study with a special equipment manufacturer (SME), that is already implementing modular architectures.

HOME: House Of Modular Enhancement—a Tool for Modular Product Redesign

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Sand ◽  
P. Gu ◽  
G. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Lead Time ◽  
Modular Design ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Product Architecture ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Overall Design ◽  
System A ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Design And Manufacturing

Product modularization aims to improve the overall design, manufacturing, operational, and post-retirement characteristics of products by designing or redesigning the product architectures. A successful modular product can assist the reconfiguration of products, while reducing the lead-time of design and manufacturing and improving the ability for upgrading, maintenance, customization and recycling. This paper presents a new modular design method called the House Of Modular Enhancement (HOME) for product redesign. Information from various aspects of the product design, including functional requirements, product architecture and life cycle requirements, is incorporated in the method to help ensure that a modularized product would achieve the objectives. The HOME method has been implemented in a software system. A case study will be presented to illustrate the HOME method and the software.

scholarly journals A Fuzzy Method for Propagating Functional Architecture Constraints to Physical Architecture

2009 ◽  
Vol 131 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Bonjour ◽  
Samuel Deniaud ◽  
Maryvonne Dulmet ◽  
Ghassen Harmel
Keyword(s):  
New Product Development ◽  
Domain Architecture ◽  
New Product ◽  
Product Architecture ◽  
Industrial Case Study ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Early Design Stages ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Engineering Projects

Modular product design has received great attention for about 10 years, but few works have proposed tools to either jointly design the functional and physical architectures or propagate the impact of evolutions from one domain to another. In this paper, we present a new method supporting the product architecture design. In new product development situations or in re-engineering projects, system architects could use this method in the early design stages to predetermine cohesive modules and integrative elements and to simulate a domain architecture by propagating architecture choices from another domain. To illustrate our approach, we present an industrial case study concerning the design of a new automobile powertrain.

scholarly journals A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL CONFIGURATION ALGORITHM FOR MODULAR PRODUCT ARCHITECTURES

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 2405-2414
Author(s):  
F. M. Seiler ◽  
D. Krause
Keyword(s):  
Influence Factors ◽  
Product Architecture ◽  
Specific Product ◽  
Product Variant ◽  
Optimisation Algorithm ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Geometric Optimisation ◽  
Customer Demands

AbstractWith an increasing demand for product individualisation leading to increased product architecture complexity and -costs, modular kits are one common measure to cope with this issue. The management of such a modular kit as well as the methodical determination of a specific product variant is key to the manufacturer's success. As multiple influence factors need to be taken into account when configuring product variants, we propose a multi-dimensional geometric optimisation algorithm, allowing for prioritising varying customer demands and thereby determining the ideally balanced product variant.

Designing Robust Systems Using Bioinspired Product Architecture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devesh Bhasin ◽  
David Staack ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Biological Systems ◽  
Product Architecture ◽  
Engineering Systems ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Engineered Systems ◽  
Function Sharing ◽  
Robust Systems ◽  
Random Failures

Abstract This work analyzes the role of bioinspired product architecture in facilitating the development of robust engineering systems. Existing studies on bioinspired product architecture largely focus on inspiring biology-like function-sharing in engineering design. This work shows that the guidelines for bioinspired product architecture, originally developed for bioinspiration of function-sharing, may induce robustness to random failures in engineered systems. To quantify such an improvement, this study utilizes Functional Modeling to derive modular equivalents of biological systems. The application of the bioinspired product architecture guidelines is then modeled as a transition from the modular product architecture of the modular equivalents to the actual product architecture of the biological systems. The robustness of the systems to random failures is analyzed after the application of each guideline by modeling the systems as directed networks. A singular robustness metric is then introduced to quantify the degradation in the expected functionality of systems upon increasing severity of random disruptions. Our results show that a system with bioinspired product architecture exhibits a gradual degradation in expected functionality upon increasing the number of failed modules as compared to an equivalent system with a one-to-one mapping of functions to modules. The findings are validated by designing and analyzing a COVID-19 breathalyzer as a case study.

Scenario-Based Determination of Alternative Product Architecture Designs

2014 ◽  
Vol 1018 ◽  
pp. 555-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Günther Schuh ◽  
Michael Schiffer ◽  
Casimir Ortlieb
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Product Differentiation ◽  
Economies Of Scale ◽  
Product Architecture ◽  
Alternative Scenario ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Alternative Product ◽  
Reducing Costs ◽  
High Degree

Today many producing companies face two major challenges: they have to maintain a high degree of product differentiation whilst reducing costs through economies of scale. One way to face these challenges is the development of modular product architectures that allow to produce a number of product variants and product generations using one single architecture. The complexity for the product development has thereby increased since expected future changes in products have to be anticipated in the designing process to minimize modification costs. The more robust a product architecture is regarding future changes, the longer an architecture can be used which directly translates into economic advantages for the company. Most companies though struggle to apply the required processes and tools to develop scenario-robust product architectures for their portfolio. This paper aims at the presentation of a methodology to develop alternative, scenario-robust product architecture designs.

Product Architecture Transition in a Modular Cyber-Physical Truck

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Williamsson ◽  
Ulf Sellgren ◽  
Anders Söderberg
Keyword(s):  
New Technology ◽  
Business Strategies ◽  
Product Architecture ◽  
Product Complexity ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Heavy Truck

A modular product architecture is a strategic means to deliver external variety and internal commonality. In this paper, we propose a new clustering based method for product modularization that integrates product complexity and company business strategies. The proposed method is logically verified by a studied industrial case, where the architecture of a heavy truck driveline is analyzed in terms of how it has evolved over a couple of decades, due to changed business strategies and the evolution of new technology. The presented case indicates that the new methodology is capable of identifying and proposing reasonable module candidates that address product complexity as well as company-specific strategies. Furthermore, the case study clearly shows that the business strategic reasons for a specific architecture can be found by analyzing how sensitive the clusters are to changes in the module drivers.

The impact of global operations on product architecture: an exploratory study

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (10) ◽  
pp. 1304-1326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Pashaei ◽  
Jan Olhager
Keyword(s):  
Product Architecture ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Modular Architecture ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Internal Network ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Global Operations ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how global operations of manufacturing companies influence the choice of product architecture decisions, ranging from integral to modular product designs. Design/methodology/approach The authors perform a multiple-case study of three global manufacturing companies with integral and modular product architectures. Findings The authors find that the internal network capabilities, the number of capable plants, the focus of component plants, the focus of assembly plants, the distances from key suppliers to internal plants, and the number of market segments significantly influence the choice of integral vs modular architecture. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to three large manufacturing companies with global operations. However, the authors investigate both integral and modular products. The authors develop propositions that can be tested in further survey research. Practical implications The findings show that the type of global operations network influences the decision on product architecture, such that certain global operations characteristics support integral product designs, while other characteristics support modular designs. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge this paper is the first study on the explicit impact of global operations on product architecture, rather than the other way around.

HOME: House of Modular Enhancement for Product Redesign for Modularization

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Sand ◽  
P. Gu ◽  
G. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Lead Time ◽  
Modular Design ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Product Architecture ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Overall Design ◽  
System A ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Design And Manufacturing

Abstract Product modularization aims to improve the overall design, manufacturing, operational, and post-retirement characteristics of products by designing or redesigning the product architectures. A successful modular product can assist the reconfiguration of products, while reducing the lead time of design and manufacturing and improving the ability for upgrading, maintenance, customization and recycling. This paper presents a new modular design method called the House Of Modular Enhancement (HOME) for product redesign. Information from various aspects of the product design, including functional requirements, product architecture and life cycle requirements, is incorporated in the method to help ensure that a modularized product would achieve the objectives. The HOME method has been implemented in a software system. A case study will be presented to illustrate the HOME method and the software.

Architecting a Modular Battery Electric Truck

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Williamsson ◽  
Ulf Sellgren
Keyword(s):  
Test Bench ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Business Strategies ◽  
Product Architecture ◽  
Conceptual System ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Dependent Behavior ◽  
Product Layout

Abstract Product architecting involves conceptual system design, module identification (clustering) and product layout design. In this paper, we propose a new extended version of the previously introduced Integrated Modularization Methodology (IMM) that integrates technical complexity and business strategic concerns into product architecture clustering. The extended IMM (eIMM) adds physical interference and implementation dependent behavior into architecture clustering. The proposed method is logically verified by an industrial case, where the architecture of a presently developed battery electric truck is used as a test bench for studying if and how the product architecture DSM and eIMM approaches may enable us to identify module candidates that are reasonable trade-offs between technical complexity, business strategies and physical interferences. The case study indicates that the eIMM is able to propose a modular product architecture with reasonable module candidates from a technical complexity point of view, and without conflicting business strategies or intra-modular physical interferences.

How Does Modularity Affect Green Design?

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Durand ◽  
Cassandra Telenko ◽  
Carolyn Seepersad
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Life Cycle Analysis ◽  
Product Performance ◽  
Green Design ◽  
Product Architecture ◽  
Material Efficiency ◽  
Modular Product ◽  
Modular Architectures ◽  
George Foreman ◽  
Selection Of

Product architecture significantly influences environmental impact. Modular architectures aid manufacture and reuse, thereby reducing manufacturing-related impacts and diverting usable waste from landfills. In contrast, modular product architectures may also sacrifice product performance or lead to over-designed products. These side-effects can increase environmental impact. The Black and Decker Firestorm and G5 George Foreman Griddle were studied to uncover and understand the effects of product architecture on energy and material efficiency. Both products incorporate component sharing for fulfilling multiple functions and incur environmental tradeoffs as a result. Experimentation, reverse engineering, and life cycle analysis of these products were used to inspire a number of guidelines for green design of modular product architectures. Difficulties involved the design of interfaces and selection of components for shared modules.

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