The potential of layout platforms for modular complex products and systems

Abstract

As an answer to the challenge for managing the complexity of offering greater product variety, firms in many industries are considering platform-based development of product families. Key in this approach is the sharing of components, modules and other assets across a family of products. Current research indicates that companies are often choosing physical elements of the product architecture (i.e. components, modules, building blocks) for building platform-based product families. Other sources for platform potential are widely neglected. We argue that for complex products and systems with hierarchic product architectures and considerable freedom in design, a new platform type, the system layout, offers important commonality potential. This layout platform standardizes the arrangement of subsystems within a product family. This paper is based on three industry case studies, where a common layout could be defined for a product family based on a modular product architecture. In combination with segment specific variety restrictions, this supports the effective, efficient and flexible positioning of a company’s products. The employment of layout platforms can lead to substantial complexity reduction and thus serve as a basis for competitive advantage, as it imposes a dominant design on a product family, improves its configurability, and supports effective market segmentation.