Modular Product Structure Research Articles

Whole lifecycle evolution control method of modular product structure oriented to personalized service

ABSTRACT The modular product structure is the orderly integration of the information generated by the modular design. With the deepening of the personalized service concept, in order to better provide personalized product customization services driven by customer demands, the research of modular product structure evolution control in the whole lifecycle is extremely necessary. Considering the different concerns of the tasks in different stages of the whole lifecycle, a 4-level modular product structure whole lifecycle evolution modelling system is proposed to transform the modular product structure into different tree structure for each lifecycle stage. By modelling the attributes for the nodes and the relationship for the edges of each stage tree, the standardized management and invocation of the information required by the personalized service process is realized. On this basis, two different personalized product customization methods led by recommendation or configuration are proposed, and the flow path and algorithm writing logic of personalized product configuration are introduced based on each stage tree. Finally, the method is applied to small agricultural machinery (SAM) products, which proves that the method can reasonably and orderly controls the evolution process, and provides a new idea for the development of whole lifecycle personalized services.

Observations on modular product structures based on teaching product modularisation

This paper studies modular product structures based on teaching product modularisation in a university course. In product modularisation, one of the most important tasks is to identify the appropriate partitioning logic for the product portfolio based on the business environment describing why each product element should be thought of as its own module or not. Central to this are the product structuring principles that create value for the company and the customer’s variety requirements creating value for customers, as well as other requirements and boundary conditions set by the business environment for the chosen product. Based on the literature and empirical findings, product modularisation enables many benefits, especially in terms of reusing designs and supply chain elements, but modularisation as a product strategy is challenging to implement. It requires not only successful product development but also changes in company practices, such as delivery chain and new type of thinking and skills. In our university course for master’s degree students, product modularisation has been taught for several years with the help of an exercise that utilizes the wheel loader set of Lego Technics. The main content of the exercise has been mainly similar in different implementations in 2017 -2020. The article presents the content of the assignment and analyses what kind of modular solutions based on the same assignment topic the students have implemented in different years and how different solutions have met the requirements of the assignment. The result of the paper is an analysis of the key partitioning types, i.e. the typical ways of partitioning a product into modules, what the pros and cons of each partitioning type are and how they fit into different requirements.

Service‐driven approach to life‐cycle dynamic evolutionary update of modular product structure

In recent years, product service system (PSS) has been paid more and more attention. Providing personalised products for customers is one of the most important services. The modularity based customisation is an effective means for it. For better customisation, the update of modular product structure (MPS) is necessary, which is the key to maintain the competitiveness of products. Therefore, the update approach of MPS for the life-cycle dynamic evolution is studied, and the problems that need to be solved emphatically are discussed. In view of the different objects concerned in the whole life cycle, a phased evolution system of MPS is constructed. Based on this, the driving factors, levels and ways of update are analysed accordingly. Then four analysis indicators are proposed to determine whether to update, and the technical supports of evolutionary update are illustrated. Finally, through the analysis of the process of dynamic evolution and update of micro-cultivator MPS, it shows that the dynamic update of MPS in the whole life cycle can maintain the ability of PSS to respond to market demand quickly, and lay a foundation for providing high-quality personalised service.

INITIAL INTEGRAL PRODUCT AND ASSEMBLY STRUCTURING: A CASE STUDY

AbstractModular product structuring has been proven an effective way to satisfy a high sales variety with low internal product and process complexity but is usually carried out on existing structures. To support the modular new product development, this contribution shows the initial structuring of integrated product and assembly structures based on a variance-oriented product structure. With help of a perspective-based modularization approach, consolidating the product life phases of procurement, assembly and sales, modular product and process structures are developed within an industry case study.

Impact of Modularity Decisions on a Firm’s Economic Objectives

Abstract Research in modularization of product families reveals numerous individual cause and effect impacts of modularity on a firm. There are clearly many interrelated positive and negative economic impacts arising from different activities of the firm impacted by the modular product structures. This makes the construction of an economic business case for modularity difficult, where often the benefits are reduced indirect costs. This paper presents a literature-based network model of how modular product structures affect firm’s economics across the design-to-manufacturing life cycle phases. It shows how (1) changes on modularity properties may lead to (2) different effects within the product’s life cycle phases that (3) have an economic impact on the firm. For instance, modularization can prolong development time of a platform, while shortening the subsequent development times of product variants and lowering manufacturing costs. To validate the proposed model, the given effect chains were compared by industrial experts against nine case study modularization projects by marking effects that were experienced and observed in their projects. The results first revealed that in design, an increase of commonality drove component reuse leading to lower development costs per unit. Second, in procurement, it was found that increased modularity caused better predictability, less purchasing orders, and better purchasing conditions that ultimately lead to lower costs. Third, in production, it was found that a smaller variety of components allowed less process variety, leading to fewer and more optimized processes and therefore lower production costs. We present these cause and effect impacts of modularity as drivers for quantifying the economic impact of modularity.

Consistent Modelling of the Impact Model of Modular Product Structures with Linking Boundary Conditions in SysML

AbstractThe challenges related to product structures, which go hand in hand with megatrends such as individualization, can be met with the modularity of product structures. With the help of various modularization methods, modular product structures are created with regard to different goals. There are many references to the effects of modular product structures on life phases and economic targets in the literature. These effects were collected in previous research in a generic impact model. Since there is a lot of information about the effects, such models become very comprehensive and thereby difficult to handle. For this reason, the impact model is consistently generated using SysML. The adaptation to company scenarios is possible through the use of simulations with which, for example, company-related and product-related boundary conditions can be controlled by means of a User Interface.

Design for Mass Adaptation of the Neurointerventional Training Model HANNES with Patient-Specific Aneurysm Models

AbstractA neurointerventional training model called HANNES (Hamburg ANatomical NEurointerventional Simulator) has been developed to replace animal models in catheter-based aneurysm treatment training. A methodical approach to design for mass adaptation is applied so that patient-specific aneurysm models can be designed recurrently based on real patient data to be integrated into the training system.HANNES’ modular product structure designed for mass adaptation consists of predefined and individualized modules that can be combined for various training scenarios. Additively manufactured, individualized aneurysm models enable high reproducibility of real patient anatomies. Due to the implementation of a standardized individualization process, order-related adaptation can be realized for each new patient anatomy with modest effort. The paper proves how the application of design for mass adaptation leads to a well-designed modular product structure of the neurointerventional training model HANNES, which supports quality treatment and provides an animal-free and patient-specific training environment.

Towards a Decision-Making Framework for Multi-Criteria Product Modularization in Cooperative Environments

Modular product family design is a strong strategy to offer a wide range of product variants economically. Many methods for designing and assessing modular product concepts are provided in literature - deciding between modular product structure alternatives, however, is still a challenging task, because of the many and unforeseeable effects on all product life-phases in combination with the high number of involved stakeholders. In addition, modularity alternatives cause multi-dimensional trade-offs that make the decision process a complex challenge.Current approaches to decide the product modularization tend to focus on the prediction of either internal or external consequences. Furthermore, they rarely consider the prevalent situation of a company’s internal tier structure with different organizational sections, responsible for different module design and supply.In this paper, we investigate modularity decision problems and introduce an innovative framework and modularity decision dashboard, considering internal and external variety evaluation, conflicting objectives of stakeholders as well as company-internal tier structures of component, module and product suppliers. The approach builds on the integrated PKT-approach for developing modular product families, recent findings in complexity cost evaluation, effects of modularization and modularity decision problems. An industrial application at a modularization strategy project in an international powertool company is presented and proves basic validity of the framework and the process model. The results of the study demonstrate how an applicable modularity decision dashboard can facilitate cooperative decision-making and leads to a balanced variety for the electromotor module portfolio in an industrial environment.

Comparative analysis of chemical similarity methods for modular natural products with a hypothetical structure enumeration algorithm

Natural products represent a prominent source of pharmaceutically and industrially important agents. Calculating the chemical similarity of two molecules is a central task in cheminformatics, with applications at multiple stages of the drug discovery pipeline. Quantifying the similarity of natural products is a particularly important problem, as the biological activities of these molecules have been extensively optimized by natural selection. The large and structurally complex scaffolds of natural products distinguish their physical and chemical properties from those of synthetic compounds. However, no analysis of the performance of existing methods for molecular similarity calculation specific to natural products has been reported to date. Here, we present LEMONS, an algorithm for the enumeration of hypothetical modular natural product structures. We leverage this algorithm to conduct a comparative analysis of molecular similarity methods within the unique chemical space occupied by modular natural products using controlled synthetic data, and comprehensively investigate the impact of diverse biosynthetic parameters on similarity search. We additionally investigate a recently described algorithm for natural product retrobiosynthesis and alignment, and find that when rule-based retrobiosynthesis can be applied, this approach outperforms conventional two-dimensional fingerprints, suggesting it may represent a valuable approach for the targeted exploration of natural product chemical space and microbial genome mining. Our open-source algorithm is an extensible method of enumerating hypothetical natural product structures with diverse potential applications in bioinformatics.

Cost Effects of Modular Product Family Structures: Methods and Quantification of Impacts to Support Decision Making

Customer demands and global markets prompt companies to offer increasing product variety. The use of modular product structures is a possible strategy for providing the necessary external variety to the market and reducing costs by lowering internal variety within the company. Current research provides several approaches for developing modular product family structures. As modularity is a gradual property, these methods generate different product structure concepts and companies have to decide at an early stage and without detailed information which concepts to implement. Most existing modularization methods offer only little or no support for decision making, particularly in terms of cost effects. This article illustrates the cost effects of variety and modular product family structures, the various cost impacts of variety management strategies and modularization methods in a literature review. A new approach to quantify these cost effects to support concept selection during modular product family design is introduced.

A Functional Platform Strategy for Integrated Machine Tools

Product modularization enables a combination of standardization and cost reduction without neglecting the concept of individualization. The major benefit is to maximize external diversity and minimize internal complexity by modular product structures. For a modular product structure and interface design of machine tools combining complementary manufacturing processes in a single machine system, a detailed understanding of the individual technologies and mutual interdependencies is essential to identify complexity and estimate the imminent development effort. Product configuration and conceptualization for integrated machine tools basically depend on the interactions of the manufacturing technologies and the required effort for realization. Platform concepts carry high potential for rationalization, due to similar structures and components and facilitate a fast and low-risk product development process in general.Consequently, a platform strategy from a functional point of view is presented to reduce the effort for product development in order to open up new manufacturing technology combinations. Complexity drivers and technological barriers preventing technology integration are included in the assessment for a methodical combination. Therefore, a holistic requirements management forms the basis for sustainable developing activities for integrated machine tools and enables a detailed description of functional dependencies. An evaluation is carried out by an established process chain for a machining process.

A Modular Product Structure Based Methodology for Seamless Information Flow in PLM System Implementation

ABSTRACTProduct development process deals with large amount of information generated from market survey, concept design, manufacture, test, limited production, production, service, and obsoleting. The information should be stored systematically so that it is easily traceable and reusable for future product development. This paper presents a methodology for seamless product information flow between the three main enterprise information systems such as Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM), Product Data/Lifecycle Management (PDM/PLM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) used in the process of innovative product development while implementing PLM. PLM implementation deals with various existing product data and information generated over years both from CAD and ERP systems. Data integration is very challenging in multi-national engineering companies and has important impact on future decisions while creating new processes. The aim is to define a modular product structure that can be used to conn...

Strategic embeddedness of modularity in alliances: Innovation and performance implications

This paper examines modular product structures in alliances. Results from a survey of 225 alliances show that modular product structures within alliances affect alliance firms' competitive performance. Product innovation performance, assessed as both speed to market and radical innovations and contingent on the employed innovation strategy, partially mediates this effect. Modular product structures exert curvilinear effects on product innovation performance and linear effects on competitive performance. Although the interaction of modular product structures with an innovation strategy increases product innovation performance, this contingency also reduces the positive effect of the innovation strategy on competitive performance.

Target-oriented Modularization – Addressing Sustainability Design Goals in Product Modularization

Through modularization, a large range of sustainability goals can be addressed in design, e.g. environmentally friendly end-of-life or improved MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) processes. The development of methods for product modularization raised increasing interest in recent years. However, published methods for product modularization still lack of flexibility and standardization. Numerous methods have been developed that are defined for one or a given list of design goals. As a result, it is still difficult for engineers to find and apply the right method for a defined set of design goals. In this paper, the field of modular product design methods has been analyzed with the aim to develop a Target-oriented Modularization Method that allows defining modular product structure according to user-defined design goals. The introduced method is demonstrated on the example of a Garrett GT2860R turbocharger.

Increasing Commonalities by Designing Production-Oriented Modular Product Platforms

Companies producing in high-wage countries are increasingly challenged due to the necessary differentiation and cost pressure. The modular product platform approach is more and more used by these companies for structuring their product range in order to realise and deploy commonalities. This type of product architecture enables companies to produce nearly individual products without losing economies of scale across the product range. Economies of scale due to communalities result in decreased process costs, reduced development lead-time by uncoupling the development of modules and products as well as the augmentation of the technical product robustness. However, the design of modular product platforms itself causes new challenges regarding the product structuring, the process and organizational design. Recent approaches for the development of communalities through modular product platforms are focusing only the product itself. Since costs are mainly determined in the development phase but caused later in the production phase both product and production have to be taken into account. Furthermore, modular product platforms have a higher variety and diversity of elements since they represent the components, modules and functions of the entire product program. This paradigm shift from an integral product design to a modular product structure cannot be controlled with existing models and methods. Our paper confirms commonality has to be optimized by focusing both the product and production. Therefore we have designed a descriptive framework (commonality model) to display and optimize the commonality both in the product and the process. Furthermore, a product architecture development process that is superior to the individual product development processes was developed for the systematic design of commonalities. The approach presented in this paper focusses on the interactions between product and process parameters. In our approach these interactions will first be displayed based on the graph theory and then be optimized applying sensitivity analysis. By varying relevant parameters both on the product and process side constitutive features can be derived determining product and process standards in order to enhance the overall commonality level.

Configuration of Assembly Supply Chain Using Hierarchical Cluster Analysis

The purpose of this paper is to propose a clustering method that configures assembly supply chains. In mass customization, product variety is often characterized by a modular product structure, in which each module may offer several variants to deliver product variants. In this context, assembly supply chain is referred to a network of suppliers who produce and assemble product variants. Given that the proportion of the product variants is specified, the technical problem is how to configure the structure of the assembly supply chain in order to reduce the complexity incurred by product variety. The technical challenge is that the possible number of configurations grows dramatically with the number of product variants. Also, enumerating the possible configurations in a mathematical framework is not a trivial task. Instead of taking an exhaustive approach, the solution approach of this paper is based on hierarchical cluster analysis, in which the tree structure is applied to configure assembly supply chain. The core technique is to investigate the coupling concept in the context of assembly supply chain to characterize the grouping conditions in the structuring process. Few examples are utilized to demonstrate and verify the methodology.

Digital Innovation and the Division of Innovative Labor: Digital Controls in the Automotive Industry

In this study of the U.S. automobile industry, we highlight the way the division of innovative labor across firms in the supply chain can be influenced by a particular form of digital innovation known as “digital control systems.” Digital control systems are becoming ubiquitous in complex products, and these digital innovations integrate other components across a product structure and introduce a level of indeterminacy and unpredictability in the organization of the interfirm division of innovative labor. Much of organizational scholarship holds that accompanying a shift toward increasingly modular product structures, component suppliers are engaging in relatively more design and invention around the components that they supply. We find that the evolution of digital controls may reverse this pattern, because in the wake of a major shift in the digital controls technology, suppliers actually engage in relatively less component innovation in comparison with their large manufacturing customers. To explain this shift, we characterize complex product structures in terms of two distinct product hierarchies: the inclusionary and the digital control hierarchy. In using this distinction to analyze the evolution of automotive emission control systems from 1970 to 1998, we reconcile two competing views about the interfirm division of innovative labor.

ORGANISING FOR MODULARITY IN DYNAMIC MARKETS

Facing constantly increasing product variety and changing customer demands, many companies have adopted a product modularisation strategy to increase strategic flexibility. Despite the dominant view that product modularisation directly increases strategic flexibility, it is argued here that the causal link between product modularisation and strategic flexibility is mediated by specific complementary organisational factors which enable firms with a modular product structure to develop strategic flexibility. Moreover, the interrelationship between product architecture and organisational structure is regarded as reciprocal. That is, product architecture and organisational structure are considered to co-evolve and mutually influence each other. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate how firms applying a modularisation strategy organise in order to increase the strategic flexibility, and how the organisational structure is interrelated with the product architecture, especially the ability to maintain a modular product architecture over time. Two International automotive companies, both of them implemented a modularisation strategy in the mid-1990s, have been studied. From the cases it can be concluded that the alignment of product and organisational architecture, decision-making structures, and the management of knowledge affect a firm's ability to evolve its products and maintain a modular product structure over time.

A method to optimize assemblability of industrial product in early design phase: from product architecture to assembly sequence

The development of modular products is diffused in modern production due to the achievable flexibility and to the required product personalization. Modular products can maximize the efficiency of productive processes if they are structured to be easily configurable during the assembly phase. In this context the present work proposes an approach to optimize the product’s modular architecture aimed to improve manual assemblability. The goal of this method is to assess the product assembly sequence during the early design stage. In particular it improves the conceptual design for assembly approach by taking into account the role of different flows in the modular product structure and the types of interface between modules. A case study regarding the household appliance field is reported and it allows the method results to be shown and to highlight advantages and drawbacks. A relevant improvement in terms of the reduction of assembly time is obtained.

Optimizing the order processing of customized products using product configuration

For the better part of the 20th century many large companies have been focussed on optimizing their mass production process as a way of maximizing their profits. Nowadays, in the existing environment of global competitiveness, enhancing the production process remains a significant issue as well. Product configuration based on integrated modular product structure and product family architecture has been recognized as an effective means for implementing mass customization. In order to evaluate the effects of product configuration on order processing, a study has been conducted by the Department of Management Engineering and Operations Management of the Technical University of Denmark in cooperation with the Institute of Production Engineering and Machine Tools of the Leibniz Universitat Hannover. Thereby, a product configuration system has been modelled for a manufacturer of mass customized products and its benefits for the order processing have been evaluated.