Design Method Selection Matrix for Facilitating Product Platform and Family Design

Abstract

The aim of this research is to develop a method to manage product platform and family design methods and to select one appropriate for a specific design case. As the need for product platform has increased over the last 20 years, research within the area has led to the development of various methods that aim at evaluating a candidate of design. While sharing similar approach, different researchers have developed different methods that vary greatly in type, focus and complexity. Although their differences are considered a strong point of the theoretical field, the large variety can end up complicating the selection process, which will result in choosing less optimal methods for a specific design case. This paper proposes Design Method Selection Matrix (DMSM) that can help designers choose appropriate design methods. The underlying basis for the proposed DMSM is to determine methods appropriateness based on the availability of information, which is defined by the situation in which the evaluation takes place, as well as the importance of information, which is determined by the goal of the evaluation. The output of DMSM is a score for each of the identified methods that represent the appropriateness of the given method, based on the situation and goal(s) chosen by the designer. Suggestions are based on parameters that can easily be determined by designers without extensive experience within platform based product design. The case study demonstrates the effectiveness of DMSM.