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Analysis and improvement of product modularization methods: Their ability to deal with complex products
Author(s) -
Holmqvist Tobias K.P.,
Persson Magnus L.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
systems engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.474
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1520-6858
pISSN - 1098-1241
DOI - 10.1002/sys.10046
Subject(s) - modular programming , product (mathematics) , computer science , function (biology) , new product development , systems engineering , software engineering , industrial engineering , manufacturing engineering , engineering , mathematics , business , programming language , marketing , geometry , evolutionary biology , biology
In recent years, product modularization has attracted increasing interest among both practitioners and academics. To facilitate the decision‐making and management of modularization in the manufacturing industry, tools and methods are needed. The purpose of this paper is to identify existing modularization methods and analyze them regarding their ability to deal with different degrees of product complexity, where complexity has several aspects: many variants, mix of different technologies, and having different solutions for one and the same function. A literature survey results in six different methods for modularization. The results of the analysis show that the modularization methods are useful for products with simple product architecture; i.e., one function is allocated to one physical module. However, concerning higher degrees of product complexity, several functions allocated to several physical modules, or large physical variation of the variants, the methods seem insufficient. Therefore, to make the methods suitable for complex products, areas for further development are suggested and discussed. ©2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 6: 195–209, 2003