Jonas Landahl

Development of product platforms: Theory and methodology

There is a trend toward increased customization of goods to satisfy a wide range of customers using product platforms. However, there is an erroneous notion that product platforms can only be used to provide economic viability in production thanks to the reuse of physical components among a family of products. Yet, this is a limited perception of the potential of a product platform. In this article, an object-oriented approach to support the development of product platforms is proposed to increase efficiency through reuse and flexibility of designs among a family of products. Two modes of the platform development process are addressed: platform preparation and platform execution. Platform preparation prescribes the methods needed to model platform objects, using enhanced function-means models and set-based concurrent engineering processes. During the platform execution process, sets of design alternatives can be configured concurrently throughout the conceptual, system, and detailed phases of the platform development. Three cases illustrate how the same approach may be used in different design scenarios: design space exploration and extension, supply-chain collaboration, and configure-to-order. The approach supports system architects and design engineers in making design decisions that propel the platform development work by enabling analysis in stages where designs are immature and evaluating the goodness of the alternatives early. Ultimately, product platforms can be efficiently developed for modularity and scalability to find feasible product variants and meet the needs of a multitude of customers.

PRODUCT VARIETY AND VARIETY IN PRODUCTION

Variety traditionally denotes products that serve a wide range of customer needs. However, variety in production exists too. Like products, production processes and production resources may also embody variety to serve the production fulfillment of a product variety. In this paper, product variety and variety in production are described and contrasted through a literature review. The aim is to serve the engineering design community with an elevated perspective of variety in production and its relation to product variety.

Simulation-driven manufacturing planning for product-production variety coordination

Ambitious manufacturers are challenged to satisfy a broad range of customers while ensuring that the emerging product variety can be produced. Current practice suggests that products and production systems are modeled separately until the late stages of development when the designs are fixed and modifications are costly. In this paper, both product and production varieties are modeled, assessed, and evaluated using discrete-event simulation during preliminary stages. An illustrative example from the aerospace industry is used to demonstrate the approach. The simulation software Simio is used to model a sequence of operations and a set of input data related to a variety of aerospace sub-systems and a variety of welding resources. Through the simulations, the average utilization rate, the average throughput time, and the average work in process are generated. These outputs are used to evaluate the sets of product-production alternatives during the early stages of platform development when the cost to adjust the design of the products, production resources and operations are trifling.

Bridging the gap between functions and physical components through a structured functional mapping chart

Functional modelling can be challenging to integrate with physical CAD-modelling, since the natures of these representations are quite different. This paper presents a methodology seeking to bridge these representations in a product platform context. The contribution of this work is a pragmatic way to improve the connections between Functional Requirements and CAD models. It does so by structuring functions, features and components and by linking these through tags in CAD-models. The methodology thereby associates the CAD models to the functional knowledge used when creating them. The result is the functional mapping chart, which is illustrated by an example from the automotive industry.

Assessing Producibility of Product Platforms Using Set-Based Concurrent Engineering

This paper presents a method to facilitate model-based producibility assessments of product variants in the early phases of platform development. The approach uses set-based concurrent engineering principles to explore and narrow down a design space towards feasible alternatives. A case including tool accessibility and assembly robustness of an aerospace sub-system platform is used to demonstrate the approach. The assessment activities can be prepared in parallel, and support the concurrency needed, across design and manufacturing, to serve improved process efficiency. Ultimately, the approach may reduce late design modifications thanks to increased reuse of manufacturing knowledge, as well as reduce cost thanks to less physical prototyping and testing.

Future Alternatives for Automotive Configuration Management

This research investigates the phenomenon of increasing cost that results from growing product complexity. To explore this phenomenon, interviews with ten senior managers and engineers with long experience in the automotive business were conducted at a car manufacturer. The interviewees agreed that configuring cars becomes more time-consuming and costly with increasing product complexity. In this paper we reason that there are upcoming solutions suitable for complex configurations. As a basis for this, we propose a distinction between limiting and managing product complexity, and stress that these approaches affect internal cost over time differently. If companies choose to limit complexity we suggest optimizing configuration rules, reducing variants or both. Conversely, we propose and contrast two different configuration strategies for managing complexity, 1) the Modular approach, and 2) the Configurable Component (CC) approach. The Modular approach may limit the ability to change. However, only few changes in manufacturing systems are needed. The CC approach is a long-term fully flexible configuration approach prepared for changes. As a drawback, the CC approach may involve high fixed costs due to the need for suitable manufacturing systems. We conclude that both the Modular approach and the CC approach are feasible for managing complexity. In a long-term perspective, it might be necessary to be able to prepare for change and reduce internal cost over time. The choice of limiting or managing complexity might therefore be a demarcation of future competitiveness.