Product Family Configuration Reasoning Using Discrete Design Spaces

Abstract

Abstract In the current market place companies need to deliver more variety with reduced time to market, lower prices and higher quality. These challenges have introduced the concept of developing a set of similar products using a common platform. Development of common platforms to support a family of products requires configuration reasoning. Configuration design spaces can be defined to facilitate platform and product family reasoning. For configuration design problems, the design space is much more difficult to define precisely (than the typical design space which is a subset of Rn, where n is the number of continuous variables), particularly when constraints are present. The purpose of this paper is to present a configuration design method that can be applied to two related problems: develop a common platform that satisfies requirements from multiple viewpoints, and generate members of a product family that also satisfy these requirements. To accomplish this objective, first design spaces are developed to model connectivity, functionality and assemblability considerations, then a common design space is developed to consider constraints from multiple viewpoints simultaneously. These design spaces are developed for both platforms and for product families. The application of this configuration design reasoning methodology is illustrated using a coffee maker product family.