A Concept Exploration Method for Product Platform and Product Family Design

In an effort to improve customization without proliferating product variety and costs, many companies are being faced with the challenge of providing as much variety as possible for the market with as little variety as possible between products. Developing a family of products - a group of related products derived from a common product platform - provides an efficient and effective means to realize sufficient product variety to satisfy customer demands. After reviewing the state of the art in reconfigurable and modular product platform design, the Product Platform Concept Exploration Method is presented, providing a novel approach for designing common, scalable product platforms and their corresponding product families. Two examples are then described briefly to demonstrate the application of the PPCEM. The first example is the design of a family of universal electric motors that is scaled around the stack length of the motor to satisfy a variety of torque and power requirements. The second example is the design of a family of General Aviation aircraft that is scaled around the two, four, and six seat configurations to satisfy a variety of performance and economic requirements. As discussed in these examples, the PPCEM can be used to design a family of products almost as efficiently as a single product with minimal compromise in individual product performance yet improved commonality between products.