The development of modular product families holds enormous economic potential for companies, as there are always great opportunities but also risks associated with all life phases of a product. However, these fundamental and far-reaching effects inevitably lead to conflicting objectives when defining modular product structures, which makes decision-making in product development particularly complex.Considering relevant theories from decision theory and product family design, this book presents an innovative method to support decision makers in the development of modular product families. The central element of the method is a novel Modularity Decision Dashboard (MDD), which interactively visualizes all decision-relevant data. The findings presented here confirm that applying the method to real-world decision-making problems leads to a more balanced ratio between internal and external variety, and thus significantly contributes to the efficient economic benefit of modularization.

The use of modular product architectures can significantly increase the efficiency in manufacturing companies. Various modularization methods are used in the development of these architectures, but they always result in different architecture alternatives. This thesis describes the development of a model-based simulation for multi-dimensional performance assessment of these architecture alternatives with their corresponding modular kits. The central element of this simulation is formed by a model-based configuration system, identifying individually valid product variants using concepts and tools of Model-based-systems-engineering (MBSE). Based on the developed Hyperspace algorithm, a geometric-mathematical solution approach, these variants are then evaluated considering multiple parameters. By recursively configuring multiple customer requests using alternative modular kits, an individual performance criterion of these alternatives can be generated, including customer-, market- and company parameters. This thesis describes the development of the performance simulation on the basis of a simplified explanation example. A validation based on customer-specific laser welding systems is also shown.

A growing heterogeneity of demand, the advent of "long tail markets", exploding product complexities, and the rise of creative consumers are challenging companies in all industries to find new strategies to address these trends. Mass customization (MC) has emerged in the last decade as the premier strategy for companies in all branches of industry to profit from heterogeneity of demand and a broad scope of other customer demands. The research and practical experience collected in this book presents the latest thinking on how to make mass customization work. More than 50 authors from academia and management debate on what is viable now, what did not work in the past, and what lurks just below the radar in mass customization, personalization, and related fields. Edited by two leading authorities in the field of mass customization, both volumes of the book discuss, among many other themes, the latest research and insights on customization strategies, product design for mass customization, virtual models, co-design toolkits, customization value measurement, open source architecture, customization communities, and MC supply chains. Through a number of detailed case studies, prominent examples of mass customization are explained and evaluated in larger context and perspective.

A growing heterogeneity of demand, the advent of ';long tail markets';, exploding product complexities, and the rise of creative consumers are challenging companies in all industries to find new strategies to address these trends. Mass customization (MC) has emerged in the last decade as the premier strategy for companies in all branches of industry to profit from heterogeneity of demand and a broad scope of other customer demands.The research and practical experience collected in this book presents the latest thinking on how to make mass customization work. More than 50 authors from academia and management debate on what is viable now, what did not work in the past, and what lurks just below the radar in mass customization, personalization, and related fields.Edited by two leading authorities in the field of mass customization, both volumes of the book discuss, among many other themes, the latest research and insights on customization strategies, product design for mass customization, virtual models, co-design toolkits, customization value measurement, open source architecture, customization communities, and MC supply chains. Through a number of detailed case studies, prominent examples of mass customization are explained and evaluated in larger context and perspective.

A growing heterogeneity of demand, the advent of ';long tail markets';, exploding product complexities, and the rise of creative consumers are challenging companies in all industries to find new strategies to address these trends. Mass customization (MC) has emerged in the last decade as the premier strategy for companies in all branches of industry to profit from heterogeneity of demand and a broad scope of other customer demands.The research and practical experience collected in this book presents the latest thinking on how to make mass customization work. More than 50 authors from academia and management debate on what is viable now, what did not work in the past, and what lurks just below the radar in mass customization, personalization, and related fields.Edited by two leading authorities in the field of mass customization, both volumes of the book discuss, among many other themes, the latest research and insights on customization strategies, product design for mass customization, virtual models, co-design toolkits, customization value measurement, open source architecture, customization communities, and MC supply chains. Through a number of detailed case studies, prominent examples of mass customization are explained and evaluated in larger context and perspective.

Advances in Product Family and Product Platform Design: Methods & Applications highlights recent advances that have been made to support product family and product platform design along with successful applications in industry. This book provides not only motivation for product family and product platform design (i.e., address questions about “why and when should we platform”) but also methods and tools to support the design and development of families of products based on shared platforms (i.e. address the “how” and “what” questions about platforming). It begins with a general overview of product family design to introduce the general reader to the topic and then progress to more advanced topics and design theory to help designers, engineers, and project managers plan, architect, and implement platform-based product development strategies for their company. Finally, successful industry applications provide readers and practitioners with case studies and “talking points” to become platform advocates and leaders within their organization.

This book focus on innovation, main objectives are to bring the community of researchers in the fields of mechanical design together; to exchange and discuss the most recent investigations, challenging problems and new trends; and to encourage the wider implementation of the advanced design technologies and tools in the world, particularly throughout China. The theme of 2021 ICMD is “Interdisciplinary and Design Innovation” and this conference is expected to provide an excellent forum for cross-fertilization of ideas so that more general, intelligent, robust and computationally economical mechanical design methods are created for multi-disciplinary applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering, CDVE 2005, held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, in September 2005. The 28 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from over 100 submissions. The papers cover all current issues in cooperative design, visualization, engineering, and other cooperative applications. Topics addressed are such as constraint maintenance, decision support, and security enforcement for CDVE. Case studies and application specific developments are among the cooperative visualization papers. Along the line of cooperative engineering, knowledge management, reconfigurability, and concurrency control are major issues addressed.

This book examines seven key combinatorial engineering frameworks (composite schemes consisting of algorithms and/or interactive procedures) for hierarchical modular (composite) systems. These frameworks are based on combinatorial optimization problems (e.g., knapsack problem, multiple choice problem, assignment problem, morphological clique problem), with the author’s version of morphological design approach – Hierarchical Morphological Multicritieria Design (HMMD) – providing a conceptual lens with which to elucidate the examples discussed. This approach is based on ordinal estimates of design alternatives for systems parts/components, however, the book also puts forward an original version of HMMD that is based on new interval multiset estimates for the design alternatives with special attention paid to the aggregation of modular solutions (system versions). The second part of ‘Modular System Design and Evaluation’ provides ten information technology case studies that enriches understanding of the design of system design, detection of system bottlenecks and system improvement, amongst others. The book is intended for researchers and scientists, students, and practitioners in many domains of information technology and engineering. The book is also designed to be used as a text for courses in system design, systems engineering and life cycle engineering at the level of undergraduate level, graduate/PhD levels, and for continuing education. The material and methods contained in this book were used over four years in Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University) in the author’s faculty course “System Design”.

This book gathers the second volume of the proceedings of the 31st edition of the International Conference on Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing, FAIM 2022, held on June 19 – 23, 2022, in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Covering four thematic areas including Manufacturing Processes, Machine Tools, Manufacturing Systems, and Enabling Technologies, it highlights advances in micro- and nanoscales processes, additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence and robotic applications, human-robot collaboration, as well as quality control, supply chain, industrial monitoring and management strategies. It also discusses important issues related to sustainability, waste management and remanufacturing. All in all, this book provides academicians, engineers and professionals with extensive information on both scientific and industrial advances in the converging fields of manufacturing, production, and automation.