COST OPTIMIZATION OF PRODUCT FAMILIES USING SOLUTION SPACES

Abstract

AbstractMaximizing the number of shared components does not always produce cost-optimal product families. Shared components can yield economies of scale due to reuse of components, but also increases material cost due to over dimensioning. In this paper, we present an approach to identify a cost-optimal design for product families. It consists of two steps: (1) identifying a scheme to share components in the product family and (2) finding the cost optimal design for the product family.