Platform-based Product Research Articles

Building competitive advantage through platform-based product family thinking: Case powerpacks

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss through the main aspects and principles of successful platform-based product family development and management. For example car industry and car manufacturers take advantage of platform-based product families while solving the conflict of balancing between wide product variety and operational efficiency. This is a common dilemma also in some other manufacturing companies operating on versatile markets; how to serve individual customer needs with minimum development, manufacturing and service efforts? Product families are in this paper seen as an answer. Thus, the aim of this paper is to promote the adoption of often complex and risky product family development especially in technology and manufacturing focused companies. To be able to minimize risks and maximize the advantages companies need to understand the dynamics of the product family thinking presented in this paper. Design/methodology/approach: After a literature survey the main aspects and principles of the product family thinking are illustrated through a case example from a company designing and manufacturing hydraulic piling equipment. Findings: The case study shows that as universal practices are missing the “best practice” in product family development is always dependent on the nature of the company and its products. It is also evident that gaining long-term competitive advantage through product family thinking will not happen without continuous learning and investments in both time and resources. Originality/value: This paper presents the main aspects and principles of the platform-based product family thinking in a systematic and hierarchical manner by connecting together platforming, architecture design, strategic aspects and management perspectives.

A Cost Model for Optimal Design of Hierarchic Product Platform under Coupled Architecture

Product platform design is essentially a difficult decision to make, thus a hierarchic platform has been proposed to solve the inherent tradeoff for optimization. However, architecture coupling adds on complexity of the platform design. This paper proposes an improved cost model for the optimal design of platform design in the hierarchic manner with the consideration of the architecture coupling. This cost model uniquely treats the architecture couplings and their decoupling interfaces as latent cost drivers to enable the flexible design of product platform and its family. As a support, the underlying tradeoff mechanism of platform-based product family design is also analyzed in this paper.

From user requirements to commonality specifications: an integrated approach to product family design

Many companies design families of products based on product platforms that enable economies of scale and scope while satisfying a variety of market applications. Product family design is a difficult and challenging task, and a variety of methods and tools have been created to support this platform-based product development. Unfortunately, many of these methods and tools have been developed—and consequently exist—in isolation from one other. In this paper, we introduce an approach to integrate several of these disparate tools into a framework to translate user needs and requirements into commonality specifications during product family design. The novelty of the approach lies in how we integrate the market segmentation grid, Generational Variety Index (GVI), Design Structure Matrix (DSM), commonality indices, mathematical modeling and optimization, and multi-dimensional data visualization tools to identify what to make common, what to make unique, and what parameter settings are best for each component and/or subsystem in the product family. The design of a family of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) demonstrates the proposed approach and highlights its benefits and limitations.

A holistic derivatives planning approach for platform-based designs

In determining the sequence of derivatives’ introduction in platform-based product designs, companies must take into account market and operational parameters simultaneously in a consistent way. This paper provides a quasi-analytical method for doing this by exploiting the representation of product structure, operations (sourcing and production), and market information in hypernetworks. Hence, derivatives sequences can be efficiently assessed with respect to their correspondence to market requirements, and the cost of switching from one derivative to another. The paper presents the theory behind and the development of the derivatives’ assessment and comparison method, and its use by means of an example case.

Recommending a platform leveraging strategy based on the homogeneous or heterogeneous nature of a product line

Platform-based product development depends on many factors, including technology, cost, competition, and life cycle considerations. Many companies would benefit from knowing more about the nature of their product families and how they impact platform-based product development. We assert that the development of a product platform and its derivative family of products is also impacted by the homogenous or heterogeneous nature of the products being developed, which has received little attention in previous engineering literature. The current study introduces an original metric for assessing the degree of homogeneity or heterogeneity in a given family: the homogeneity versus heterogeneity ratio (HHR), which works at two levels of abstraction, namely, family and function. This study focuses on the platform leveraging strategy and takes into consideration two other aspects of platform development: the specification of the family and the necessity of differentiation. To support platform design, the HHRfamily and HHRfunction metrics quantify the ratio of homogeneity to heterogeneity in the family to recommend a platform leveraging strategy by highlighting homogeneous functions that support platform leveraging. Reverse engineering helps us to retroactively study three types of families (power tools, single-use cameras, and blue jeans) using HHRfamily and HHRfunction. In particular, we demonstrate: (1) quantification of the homogeneity/heterogeneity of a family of products based on their functions; (2) recommendation of a leveraging strategy based on HHR; (3) a new leveraging strategy, the combined leveraging strategy via cross leveraging; (4) how HHR can help designers to validate the product family specification; and (5) how HHR can highlight needs to differentiate a family of products other than through functions.

Design structure matrix based value analysis of software product platforms

Product architecture is a baseline for the designing and developing of any product or service. It is an important stage of any design process. Flexibility in the design process with modifications, maintenance, inter-changeability, etc. can be obtained quite easily by adopting platform-based product design and development strategy. This strategy also supports firms in introducing new product variants, new applications and newer market segments without any major redesigning of existing products or product variants. In this paper various available product architectures are discussed and displayed with the help of the design structure matrix (DSM) tool, along with the value analysis process of platform-based product development strategy. An example is taken from a software company in order to demonstrate value option modelling for platform-based decision-making process. Several research outcomes and some future research directions are also discussed and presented in the conclusion section of this paper.

Platform-oriented product development: prospects and limitations

Globalised demands for products variants with reduced developmental time lead firms to consider effective and organised product development approach. In order to fulfil these requirements, manufacturing firms are increasingly moving towards platform-oriented product development or are planning to do so to reduce complexity and better leverage investments in product design, manufacturing and marketing. In this paper, an overview of key topics related to platform design and product variety management is provided. A review of recent works on product platform design and its application to industries is discussed. A generic design structure matrix (DSM) tool is presented that outlines an effective methodology for platform design. This methodology is explained through presenting an example of a diesel fueled ship engine. Different limitations and risks associated with the management of platform-based product design and development are discussed along with some future research directions too.

Sensitivity Analysis-based Method for Product Family Design

In order to achieve system-wide solution for platform-based product family design, any design method should set up the decision framework along the entire spectrum of product realization according to the concept of design domains. The method presented is explored through sensitivity analysis which helps to quantify the cascading mappings between customers’ requirements, functional requirements, design parameters and process variables. Based on analyzing customers’ needs, the product platform characteristics are identified by using the sensitivity analysis results which integrate various information from all the design domains. By way of illustration, a family of sedan is designed and its results demonstrate the effectiveness and practical value of the method.

Aligning external varieties to internal varieties for market solutions

Product customisation is an essential requirement for manufacturing firms to achieve higher customers' satisfaction and fulfil business target. To achieve these objectives, firms need to handle both external and internal varieties successfully. Both the varieties are needed to be integrated for the purpose of developing customised product. Integration among these varieties for a case company is displayed and discussed with the help of Domain Mapping Matrix (DMM) tool. Various customisation strategies such as modular design, commonality among modules and platform-based product development are elaborated and discussed critically. This paper is concluded with several managerial implications and future research direction.

A manufacturing-oriented approach for multi-platforming product family design with modified genetic algorithm

With highly fragmented market and increased competition, platform-based product family design has been recognized as an effective method to construct a product line that satisfies diverse customer's demands while aiming to keep design and production cost-effective. The success of the resulting product family often relies on properly resolving the inherent tradeoff between commonality across the family and performance loss. In this paper, a systematic multi-platforming product family approach is proposed to design a scale-based product family. In the light of the basic premise that increased commonality implies enhanced manufacturing efficiency, we present an effective platform decision strategy to quantify family design configuration using a commonality index that couples design varieties with production variation. Meanwhile, unlike many existing methods that assume a single given platform configuration, the proposed method addresses the multi-platforming configuration across the family, and can generate alternative product family solutions with different levels of commonality. A modified genetic algorithm is developed to solve the aggregated multiobjective optimization problem and an industrial example of a planetary gear train for drills is given to demonstrate the proposed method.

Optimal Design of Hierarchic Components Platform under Hybrid Modular Architecture

Platform-based product family has been proven an effective strategy to economically provide wide market coverage. However, two practical platform design issues need to be properly handled: (1) commonized components require over-design of features that drives capability waste and additional costs with regard to the lower end product variants, and (2) commonization pattern of components is constrained by couplings of the base platform architecture. This research attempts to present a generic approach for the optimal platform design that treats commonization of components in a hierarchic manner under hybrid modular architecture. Three major sections are included: (1) identification of hidden interface costs defined by the architectural couplings, (2) modeling of hierarchic sharing relationship of commonized components across product variants, and (3) configuration of the hierarchic components platform for the lowest total production cost. Finally, a family of cordless drills targeting a series of rated output torques is employed to demonstrate the proposed approach.

A framework for designing balanced product platforms by estimating the versatility of components

Mass customisation is a common trend in many industries, and the platform-based product family strategy is a widely used method for this purpose. While the platform strategy can reduce the cost of variety by sharing common assets such as components and production processes, it has the risk of losing market share owing to its limitation on diversity. A balance between commonality and variety needs to be achieved when designing platforms that are both efficient and effective. In this paper, we focus on developing a platform that is versatile for highly effective differentiation to increase market share, incorporating the preferences of customers for different kinds of diversity. By distinguishing preferred and non-preferred diversity and ignoring the unnecessary need for differentiation, a platform designer can increase commonality without loss of market share. Under the assumption that a versatile platform is composed of versatile components, we estimate the versatility of components to identify the versatile ones. The estimation method consists of two phases: the market analysis phase, for identifying which specifications are preferred to be differentiated, and the product analysis phase, for assessing how much impact the differentiation may have on the component. A high versatility score indicates that the corresponding component is suitable for being platformed since it is not likely to be changed to increase market share. At the same time, a low versatility score provides a clue for improving the product architecture. The proposed method was applied to computer mouse design and yielded a reasonable platform plan.

Using product family evaluation graphs in product family design

Product family design and platform-based product development have garnered much attention. They have been used to provide nearly customised products to satisfy individual customer requirements and simultaneously achieve economies of scale during production. The inherent challenge in product family design is to balance the trade-off between product commonality (how well the components and functions can be shared across a product family) and variety (the range of different products in a product family). Quantifying this trade-off at the product family planning stage in a way that supports the engineering design process has yet to be accomplished. In this paper, we introduce a graphical evaluation method, the product family evaluation graph (PFEG), that allows designers to choose the ‘best’ product family design option among sets of alternatives based on their performance with respect to an ideal commonality/variety trade-off determined by a company's particular competitive focus, and guides designers towards a more desirable trade-off between commonality and variety in an existing product family. Two necessary supporting pieces for developing the PFEG are also proposed. One piece is the development of commonality and variety indices to quantitatively capture the degree of commonality and variety in a product family and its functions and components. We introduce two sets of commonality and variety indices–the CDI (commonality versus diversity index) for commonality (CDIC) and variety (CDIV), and the CMC (comprehensive metric for commonality) for commonality (CMCC) and variety (CMCV)–to achieve this. The other supporting piece is the development of a quantitative representation of the ideal trade-off between commonality and variety in a product family, known as the commonality/variety trade-off angle α, based on the elements that characterise a company's competitive focus and their industry-wide competitors. A linear regression model is used to link the qualitative competitive focus to a quantitative engineering perspective, and then to estimate the ideal trade-off angle. The commonality/variety trade-off angle can then be applied to the PFEG to help designers evaluate a product family or compare product family design alternatives. Most importantly, the PFEG is not just the graph of the two sets of indices; it is the representation of the commonality/variety trade-off relative to the desired competitive focus. Four families of power tools are used to illustrate how the computation of such indices supports product family design evaluation in the PFEG. In this paper, we only use the CDI in the example application, but the CMC can be computed using the same approach.

Modularity analysis and commonality design: a framework for the top-down platform and product family design

With a highly fragmented market and increased competition, platform-based product family design is recognised as an effective method for constructing a product line that satisfies diverse customer demand while keeping design and production cost- and time-effective. Recognising the need for modularity and commonality in platform development, this paper presents a systematic framework to assist in implementing top-down platform and product family design, which aims to achieve system-level modularity for variety generation, and rationalise the commonality configuration for module instantiation. In the first phase of platform development, a robust and flexible product family architecture is constructed to accommodate variations by analysing the external varieties of the generic product architecture, and provide a modularity design space, wherein the design tasks are further decomposed into module instantiation. The second phase of detailed platform development aims to enhance commonality in terms of engineering efficiency by coordinating with the back-end product realisation stage. A tractable optimisation method is used to capture and resolve the trade-off between commonality configuration and individual product performance. A family of power tool designs is used to demonstrate the potential and feasibility of the proposed framework at the system level and detailed design stages.

Assessing and improving commonality and diversity within a product family

At a time when product differentiation is a major indicator of success in the global market, each company is looking to offer competitive and highly differentiated products. This differentiation issue is restricted by the design of platform-based products that share modules and/or components. It is not easy to differentiate products in a market that is often overwhelmed by numerous options. A platform-based approach can be risky because competition in the global market can become an internal competition among similar products within the family if there is not enough differentiation in the family. Thus, the goal for the product platform is to share elements for common functions and to differentiate each product in the family by satisfying different targeted needs. To assess commonality in the family, numerous indices have been proposed in the literature. Nevertheless, existing indices focus on commonality and reflect an increase in value when commonality increases but do not positively reflect an increase in the value as a result of diversity; hence, the commonality versus diversity index (CDI) is introduced in this paper to assess the commonality and diversity within a family of products or across families. The CDI has variable levels of depth analysis to help designers design or improve the product family. Two case studies using single-use cameras and power tool families highlight the usefulness of this new index.

A Product Dissection-Based Methodology to Benchmark Product Family Design Alternatives

Today’s companies are pressured to develop platform-based product families to increase variety, while keeping production costs low. Determining why a platform works, and alternatively why it does not, is an important step in the successful implementation of product families and product platforms in any industry. Internal and competitive benchmarking is essential to obtain knowledge of how successful product families are implemented, thus avoiding potential pitfalls of a poor product platform design strategy. While the two fields of product family design and benchmarking have been growing rapidly lately, we have found few tools that combine the two for product family benchmarking. To address this emerging need, we introduce the product family benchmarking method (PFbenchmark) to assess product family design alternatives (PFDAs) based on commonality/variety tradeoff and cost analysis. The proposed method is based on product family dissection, and utilizes the Comprehensive Metric for Commonality developed in previous work to assess the level of commonality and variety in each PFDA, as well as the corresponding manufacturing cost. The method compares not only (1) existing PFDAs but also (2) the potential cost savings and commonality/variety improvement after redesign using two plots—the commonality/variety plot and the cost plot—enabling more effective comparisons across PFDAs. An example of benchmarking of two families of valves is presented to demonstrate the proposed method.

Platform strategy framework for internet-based service development: case of eBay

Service industry has grown to dominate a significant portion of the US economy. However, research focusing on service development has not grown at the same pace. This paper focuses on platform-based product development that is increasingly used by high-technology companies in their quest to manage the complexity associated with offering greater product variety. The authors extend platform thinking to the service sector and postulate that companies developing nonphysical or intangible services, such as internet-based services, might also benefit from adopting an effective platform strategy. A platform strategy framework for web-enabled services is introduced to aid management in designing and developing strategically sound platforms that leverage existing markets and core competencies.

Designing for Agility as an Organizational Capability: Learning from a Software Development Firm

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of agility in an organizational setting -- how a software development firm (SDF) developed, maintained and enhanced agility as it changed from a developer of experimental prototypes to a product-based provider. Qualitative approach based onextensiveinterviewsandon-siteobservationsattwopointsintimeseparatedbyafive-year interval. Agilitymechanismstendtobedynamicandevolveovertime.Attime1,SDFachievedagilitybyadopting a formal platform-based product design and an informal, organic organizational structure. By time 2,SDFhadadoptedamodular-basedproductdesignandamoreformalstructure.Implicationsinclude: (1) interdisciplinary-based framework to understand agility in the workplace; (2) multiple forms of agility and the dynamics among them; (3) re-conceptualization of agility as a new organizational capability;and,(4)causalrelationshipbetweenagilityandotherorganizationallearningmechanisms. Limitationsinclude:(1)thetentativetheorybuilding(asopposedtotheorytesting)qualitativeapproach; and, (2) single case study within a specific industry. (Practical Implications: 1) By adopting agility mechanism software development firms may overcome strategic challenges in the software industry: extensive reworks, death marches, and client support services; (2) over time managers should explore alternative mechanisms to sustain agility; and (3) agility-by-design is likely to facilitate firm success and growth.

A value chain oriented approach for the development of global platforms in the systems business

Globalisation pressures lead companies of the capital-intensive goods industry to follow the example of the automotive industry and develop global platform-based products. One of the most difficult tasks is to cover all kinds of local standards, laws, and regulations within standardised products. Supplementary strong variations in the purchasing power of customers, education of work forces, and availability of technology or mere fashions in local markets have an impact on regional business processes. Thus, undesirable and unplanned redesigns become necessary during the localisation of a global product family into its regional markets. Hence, this research discusses a generic platform development process adaptive for the conditions of the systems and project business. The process and its methods have been implemented at Schindler Elevators Ltd during the development of a new global product family. Supported by a matrix-based method, called the Variant Indication Analysis, the proposed platform process incorporates regionally varying product life cycles and value chain requirements into the development of the global platform. This process is further supported by a Component Box platform model offering robustness for component reuse and flexibility for local differentiation. Moreover, it facilitates the collaborative product development by offering enhanced transparency throughout the entire process.

A market-driven approach to product family design

In an effort to meet the diverse needs of today's highly competitive global marketplace better, many companies are utilizing product families and platform-based product development to increase variety, shorten lead-times, and reduce costs. Current research in the area of product family design mostly focuses on the cost-savings benefits of the platform-based approach and does not sufficiently examine broader enterprise considerations such as profit and market share. Furthermore, very few existing design methods integrate market considerations (e.g., customer preferences, competition) with product development efforts in their formulation. In this work, in addition to integrating market considerations with traditional product family concerns (e.g., modular design, decisions regarding shared parts and processes), the scope of the product family design problem is expanded to include the product line positioning problem, i.e., the problem of determining the appropriate market niche for each product variant in the family. The novel market-driven product family design (MPFD) methodology proposed here is introduced to systematically examine the impact of increasing the variety in the product offerings across different market segments and explore the cost-savings associated with commonality decisions. A unique representation scheme is also introduced to enable us to integrate the qualitative market segmentation grid with mathematically rigorous demand models, and the demand modelling approach employed in this paper models the dissimilar impacts of competition in different market segments and plays a significant role in determining the appropriate platform leveraging strategy. The design of a family of universal motors is used to demonstrate the proposed approach.