Product Platform Development Research Articles

Product platform development in industrial networks

The purpose of the paper is to identify strategic issues in choosing deployment of product platform development in an industrial network often involving multiple brands. This is done through identifying types and characteristics of four generically different product platform strategies and clarifying strategic motives and differences. Number of platforms and number of product brands are identified as the two most important dimensions when distinguishing between generically different platform strategies. A strategic sampling is made resulting in in-depth longitudinal case studies in two automotive groups. Depending on company context, strategic objectives, and plans for future growth, the four types of generic product platform strategies raise different challenges and issues to deal with when realising product platform development in an industrial network. The four types of identified platform strategies with their different challenges and issues represent an addition and contribution to existing literature, which does not make any distinction between various kinds of platform strategies.

A framework for ontology based decision support system for e-learning modules, business modeling and manufacturing systems

This paper identifies how ontology models can be vigorously used to define semantics and relationships in representing objects/modules for e-learning, business modeling support and manufacturing processing details. Further extraction of these relations by intelligent decision-support systems using data mining as a tool is discussed. The paper envisages the possibility of establishing a common solution platform for product development and customization leading to increased profitability and better resource utilization. It showcases ways to link these different ontological models leading to cross platform compatibility. It also tries to explore manufacturer-customer relationship and using them to provide quality analysis methods for further improvement in the product processing model.

Two-stage product platform development for mass customisation

Designing new products based on those features (platforms) that have proven successful or ‘fit’ is generally termed as ‘platform product development (PPD)’. This approach provides a basis for mass customisation (MC) which largely enhances an enterprise's competitiveness in terms of the speed, quality and cost. Currently, however, the PPD approach is heavily dependent on the experience and skills of individual designers and managers. Researchers have been working on platform leveraging strategies at the strategic level, and guidelines for better structuring the approach to facilitate its adoption and implementation. This research project recognises an equal need for scientific decision supports at the tactical level for design practitioners and managers to address fundamental questions such as: (A) how a platform should be established for a family of products in a given industrial and market context; and (B) how a product development team chooses and then customises the most appropriate product platform to meet the customer requirements from a specific market segment with particular manufacturing resources and supply bases. This paper describes a scientific and effective decision – genetic algorithm to assist product development practitioners and managers with major decision activities in the process of platform product development under several focus areas.

Mass Customization and Beyond – Application of Co-Creation & Postponement

Rapid technological changes and shortening product life cycles are fundamentally altering the nature of competition in many industries by diffusing competitive advantage. The dominant paradigm, 'mass-production,' is being challenged by the emerging paradigm, 'mass customization.' Mass customization (MC) means production of goods and services for a (relatively) large market which exactly meets the needs of every individual customer with regard to certain product characteristics (differentiation option) at costs roughly corresponding to those of standard mass produced goods. Mass customization enhances profitability through a synergy of increasing customer-perceived value and reducing the costs of production and logistics. Within the knowledge domain of mass customization, this paper focuses on three interrelated strategies: co-creation, modularization and postponement. Also outlined is a road map for building competitive advantage through mass customization based on involvement of customers during early stages of product development and application of postponement by building block identification and product platform development.

Supplier Integration and Communication Strategies in Collaborative Platform Development

Following the introduction of platform-based products, especially considering that platforms are used for multiple brands, there is certainly a growing need for system engineering processes and techniques. This is further emphasized by the fact that companies faced with collaborative platform development frequently need to harmonize often opposing claims from stakeholders with different backgrounds, beliefs, desires and intentions. A core strategy for using resources (e.g., work-hours, knowledge, and production systems) better and more flexibly is to involve suppliers earlier in the development cycle. From this perspective, well-designed and efficiently managed supplier integration is a huge competitive advantage. Supplier integration may range from component design and manufacture to full responsibility for the design of complex distributed systems. The starting point for this work is the results from a previous study, made by the authors, in which a Swedish automotive company and one of its sub-suppliers were examined in order to identify communication barriers. This revealed several problems regarding supplier interaction and information management in projects where both suppliers and product owners contribute their unique knowledge. Following the previous study, the questions to answer include: How can platforms be represented to suit suppliers as well as orginal equipment manufacturers? How does one guarantee efficient, accurate and secure information exchange between the parties involved? Consequently, this article pinpoints some of the problems that companies involved with collaborative product platform development, together with their suppliers, must face today. To answer these questions, interviews, and document studies were conducted for a Swedish truck manufacturer. The results are oriented to the interfaces between product owners and their suppliers.

Investigation to Peer-to-Peer-based collaborative working platform for product development

The current globalising industry is highly desired for synchronous collaborative working environment to perform multisited and multiuser cooperation during complex product design among partners, to provide customisation-oriented service to fulfil market demands and to satisfy customer's requirement around the world. This paper introduces a preliminary research work about Peer-to-Peer (P2P)-based collaborative communication environment that attempts to support codesign 3D CAD model in synchronous Collaborative Product Design (CPD) in the way of What You See Is What I see (WYSIWIS). A prototype with communication means of document cosharing and editing, draft codrawing, instant message and VRML-based visualisation space is developed on the basis of JXTA development platform. Collaborative model modification can be performed by the cooperation between document coediting space and VRML visualisation space.

Technology-driven product platform development

In designing product platforms it is essential to consider the role of technology and its evolution to avoid frequent redesign costs or even premature obsolescence of key components. The Technology-driven Platform Development Method (TPDM) enhances existing platform design methods by identifying underlying technologies and the potential for change in their intrinsic characteristics – performance level, principle of operation, and technology architecture. A set of four heuristics is applied to determine the technology-driven platform elements. Application of the TPDM to the iPod portable music players showed that existing platform elements would require additional platforming and interface design to form a technology-driven platform.

Multibranded Platform Development: A Corporate Strategy with Multimanagerial Challenges

Product platforms have become a principal fundament and a prerequisite for profitable product development in almost every industry today. Since platforms have a desirable potential to reduce development and production costs, there is an extensive bulk of knowledge describing underlying platform principles and challenges. But the vast majority of the identified challenges are based on single firms and brand contexts, which imply that previous findings might not be applicable when platform development involves several brands, here called multibranded platforms. In the present article it is therefore suggested that there is lack of knowledge describing managerial challenges of multibranded platform development. To be able to capture such a strategy that holds certain complexity and unknown dimension, an explorative and longitudinal field study is supposed to achieve the finest insights into a yet incompletely documented phenomenon. Because of the field‐study approach, findings from the study are theoretically validated in relation to existing knowledge from other contributions. To start developing a multibranded product platform development framework, the present study identifies three distinctively different strategic forces that must be handled in such multibranded platform development: (1) the creation of a common architecture; (2) accomplishing product differentiation within an expanded and multibranded product scope; and (3) corporate responsibility in the transition from single‐branded to multibranded platform development. Three dimensions of managerial challenges are identified. The first is technology management challenges, which deal with commonalization in terms of the development of common multibranded architectures. The major challenge to achieve architectural commonalization is that no individuals from any brand have the proper multibranded architectural knowledge. Instead, multibranded architectures must evolve from the beginning and be founded on a new and expanded brand scope. Architectural commonalization also includes elements of unlearning since previous experiences have little relevance. The second challenge is brand management challenges and deals with brand differentiation in terms of portfolio management. Differentiation is an effect of increased diversification that particularly challenges brands of opposite generic competitive strategies. The third challenge dimension is called corporate management challenges and deals with the combination of the two others. From a corporate management perspective, it seems important to provide new organizational structures that support and combine interests of technology and brand management. Finally, multibranded platform development is a corporate strategy that affects business units and functional units thoroughly.

PpXML: A generic and extensible language for lifecycle modelling of platform products

This paper presents a new language, ppXML (platform product eXtensible Markup Language), for the lifecycle modelling of platform products in agile product development for mass customization (MC). ppXML has multi-folded meanings. Firstly, ppXML provides a set of constructs that are consistent with concepts and methods widely used in platform product development (PPD) for MC. Secondly, derived from XML as a sublanguage, ppXML is a standard and yet extensible modelling language dedicated to the modelling of product variants and platforms reflecting commonality, modularity, scalability and other strategies. Thirdly, ppXML can also be extended for defining web services deployed in the computation grid of web-based decision support systems (DSS) for platform product development and mass customization. Finally, ppXML serves as a standard interface with the product platform repository and a PPD web service registry, together with a set of online facilities for data representation and transformation between different components and parties involved in the web services. ppXML complements the efforts in product lifecycle data modelling by emphasizing the strategic level of product planning using a platform approach.

Counteracting Forces in Multi-branded Product Platform Development

Multi-branded product platforms represent a concurrently promising and challenging strategy to companies striving to get beyond possible economies of scale and scope within a single organization and brand. The strategic aim of multi-branded platform development is to create financial synergies by combining assets across several brands and product programmes. This research is based on a longitudinal field study using a clinical research approach in a global multi-product, multi-branded industrial group. Findings from the study explore two opposite forces counteracting the purpose of multi-branded platforms: the development of common product architecture, and product differentiation. The major challenge is that these two forces possess opposite characteristics, but they need to be handled jointly and concurrently in order to realize intended synergies.

A generic and extensible information infrastructure framework for mass-customizing platform products

This paper discusses the design and development of an information infrastructure for customizing platform products on a mass scale. The resulting framework provides a technology forum for the Mass Customization (MC) and Platform Product Development (PPD) communities to deploy their most advanced tools and techniques as online services, in order to enable and facilitate meaningful interoperability of information and knowledge management. The design and development have been based on MC concepts and latest Information Technology constructs. A special language, ppXML, is derived from XML for modelling platform products, such that different PPD and MC Web services can exchange the information in the common language. prdUDDI and mcPortal provide useful facilities for different groups of users to register, deploy, search and activate their PPD and MC services with the portal. A case study on applying a platform product customization (PPc) Web service is presented to demonstrate how the portal is utilized and to identify what features are important to the users.

Product development platform for real-time capture and reuse of evolving product information

Product life cycle management promises management of all intellectual assets generated for all life cycle stages of a product. In engineering, over 75% of design activity comprises case-based design ? reuse of previous design knowledge to address a new design problem. This means that rationale capture and reuse are critical in design and redesign projects. The goal of this paper is to report empirical study of designing carried out to understand the needs and constraints for design rationale capture, and to detail the concept, implementation and preliminary evaluation of an unobtrusive, real-time design rationale capture framework.

Special Issue on Collaborative Engineering

Special Issue on Collaborative Engineering

Development of an electronic configure-to-order platform for customized product development

Next generation manufacturing calls for mass customization of product fulfillment encompassing global and networked enterprises. This paper reports the development of an electronic configure-to-ord...

Process platform planning for mass customisation production

Current practice in developing product platforms only encompasses the design domain. It seldom, if at all, considers the impact of product platforms on production and, in turn, the implication of process data for product platform development. Hence, it is imperative for platform development to synchronise product and process variety from both design and production perspectives. In this paper, the concept of process platform planning is proposed to support variety synchronisation from design to production. A process platform involves three main aspects: 1) a common process structure shared by all process variants; 2) the derivation of specific process variants from the common structure; 3) the correspondence between product and process variety. The study suggests that planning a process platform is conducive to the synchronisation of product and process variety.

Software product lines structuring based upon market demands

Nowadays the increasing demand for customized products and services in traditional areas such as Automotion Manufacturing or Aeronautical Component Engineering is being satisfied with a new approach called "Product Platform". This successful approach is also being considered in the design of software-based components in these areas, which are recognized as complex and critical.In this paper, we present the research that is being carried out at Mondragon University. This effort focuses on the analysis of existing Product Platform Development methods and the transference of this know-how to Software Product Development.As a result, a Software Product Line (SPL) development method will be defined and applied in a real case. This method will be based upon market demands, so it should be flexible enough to respond to customer's requests and market pressure. In this paper we will explain in detail one step of the process. This step is concerned with how QFD technique can be used to the specification of components in a SPL.

INTER-FIRM PRODUCT PLATFORM DEVELOPMENT IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

The product platform development process becomes critical and of general interest when different brand name products are developed from inter-firm developed product platforms. The inter-firm platform adds perspectives not considered in previous research. In this article areas related to the inter-firm product platform integration process are described. The study is a longitudinal, deep, explorative study aimed at identifying managerial challenges to inter-firm platform development and how they can be dealt with. Analysis shows that the factory sequence is a critical factor when developing inter-firm platform architecture. Also, making architectural concessions without jeopardising brand uniqueness places new demands on managers involved in the development processes. Further, we found a reciprocal interdependence between technological and managerial factors that created a need for innovative organisational and managerial solutions. Finally, reciprocal interdependences add complementary theoretical knowledge on how to better control and understand areas that hamper inter-firm product development projects from attaining cost-effective solutions and economies of scale.

Open standard, open source and peer-to-peer tools and methods for collaborative product development

This paper reports on a collaborative product development and knowledge management platform for small to medium enterprises. It has been recognised that current product lifecycle management (PLM) implementations are document oriented, have a non-customisable data model and inter-enterprise integration difficulties. To overcome these, an ontological knowledge management methodology utilising the semantic web initiative data formats was added to a PLM and an open source alternative. Shortcomings of centralised architectures are highlighted and a solution using a de-centralised architecture proposed. This is implementable at low cost; the scalability increases in line with user numbers. Ontologies, rules and workflows are reusable and extendable.

An uneasy alliance [innovation management

It is important for engineering organizations to be set up in such a way that the innovative spirit of their engineers are reinforced and their product development teams are able to perform at optimum level. The deployment of these teams requires setting and balancing multiple priorities. Many engineered product companies have to prioritize opportunities and resolve conflicts between new technology investment, new product platform development, smaller incremental product rollouts and the release of specialized or customized products based on these platforms. All of these opportunities require innovative engineering, all can be profitable and all are necessary for a well-balanced organization. Moreover, it can all go on simultaneously if R&D activities are effectively managed.

Special Issue: Platform product development for mass customization

Platform product development is a contemporary approach to agile product development for mass customization. Distinctive product variants are derived or customized from a platform that is defined as components and subsystems commonly shared across a product family. A well-organized platform is essential to connect different parties of an enterprise including soliciting customer needs through order fulfillment to field service. Hence, it is also critical to achieve the economy of scale by identifying repetitive applications of share tooling, knowledge, and other resources. In this Special Issue, we attempt to cover the different aspects of platform product development. The topics span a wider range of artificial intelligence (AI) disciplines, from knowledge representation to knowledge support systems. It identifies a fertile area not only for applying AI to contemporary issues of design and manufacturing systems but also for enriching the methodology for developing AI systems in manufacturing enterprises. Indeed, we consider that numerous successful applications in the industrial sectors highlight a future direction for productive AI applications in industry.