CONFIGURING CUSTOMIZED PRODUCTS WITH DESIGN OPTIMIZATION AND VALUE-DRIVEN DESIGN

Abstract

AbstractIn order to efficiently design and deliver customized products, it is crucial that the process of translating customer needs to engineering characteristics and into unique products is smooth and without any misinterpretations. The paper proposes a method that combines design optimization with value-driven design to support and automate configuration of customized products. The proposed framework is applied to a case example with spiral staircases, a product that is uniquely configured for each customer from a set of both standard and customized components; a process that is complex, iterative and error-prone. In the case example, the optimization and value-driven design models are used to automate and speed-up the process of delivering quotations and design proposals that could be judged based on both engineering characteristics as well as their added value, thereby increasing the knowledge at the sales stage. Finally, a multi-objective optimization algorithm is employed to generate a set of Pareto-optimal solutions that contain four clusters of solutions that dominate the baseline design. Hence the decision-maker is given a set of optimal solutions to choose from when balancing different economical and technical characteristics.