Module commonization in product family incorporating fine-tune improvement

Abstract

Modularization and common module design have been discussed to comply with ever expanded global market. Although its ability to realize wide variety of product family are acknowledged, industries have still hesitated to take steps toward its actual implementation. One of the strongest concerns that industries have on product modularization is loss of competitive edge. Historically Japanese industries have advantages in their fine-tune integration - Suriawase. However, modular design may impede such Suriawase as interfaces among modules need to be agreed beforehand. By incorporating opportunity for Suriawase in a module that leads to competitiveness, common module design could be prominent way of design and development of product for Japanese industries. This paper proposes a computational support method for the planning of modular commonization structure of a product line that incorporates opportunity for Suriawase. While there have been several former study on modular commonization planning, this paper additionally discusses the aspect of Suriawase. The case study on planning of solar boat product line demonstrates the proposed method. Relevance of the proposed method was verified through audit with industrial partner as well.

Keywords

• modularization
• modular design
• product family design
• integral product structure
• functional structure