FRAMEWORK OF A VARIANT MANAGEMENT FOR MODULAR PRODUCT ARCHITECTURES
DS 84: Proceedings of the DESIGN 2016 14th International Design Conference
Year: 2016
Editor: Marjanovic Dorian, Storga Mario, Pavkovic Neven, Bojcetic Nenad, Skec Stanko
Author: Weiser, A.-K.; Baasner, B.; Hosch, M.; Schlueter, M.; Ovtcharova, J.
Series: DESIGN
Section: DESIGN PROCESSES
Page(s): 1435-1444
Abstract
Nowadays companies are facing the threat of an increasing complexity by a modular product architecture. The implementation of a modular structure comes with high efforts, yet during the application phase these expenditures are compensated by an efficient complexity handling. However, the modular structure is not permanent. Decisions on a refinement of the modular product family have to be made, while simultaneously ensuring commonalities within the modular structure. Therefore, a framework for a modular variant management has been designed and verified at Bosch Thermotechnik.
Keywords: modular product architecture, complexity management, control-of-variety, decision-making