Two Methodologies for Identifying Product Platform Elements Within an Existing Set of Products
Abstract
As companies are pressured to decrease product development costs concurrently with increasing product variety, the need to develop products based upon common components and platforms is growing. Determining why a platform worked, or alternatively why it did not, is an important step in the successful implementation of product families and product platforms in any industry. Unfortunately, published literature on platform identification and product family analysis using product dissection and reverse engineering methods is surprisingly sparse. This paper introduces two platform identification methodologies that use different combinations of tools that can be readily applied based on information obtained directly from product dissection. The first methodology uses only the Bills-of-Materials and Design Structure Matrices while the second utilizes function diagrams, Function-Component Matrices, Product-Vector Matrices, and Design Structure Matrices to perform a more in-depth analysis of the set of products. Both methodologies are used to identify the platform elements in a set of five single-use cameras available in the market. The proposed methodologies identify the film advance and shutter actuation platform elements of the cameras, which include seven distinct components. The results are discussed in detail along with limitations of these two methodologies.
Recommended Citation
E. D. Steva et al., "Two Methodologies for Identifying Product Platform Elements Within an Existing Set of Products," Proceedings of the ASME 2006 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (2006, Philadelphia, PA), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Jan 2006.
Meeting Name
ASME 2006 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (2006: Sep. 10-13, Philadelphia, PA)
Department(s)
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Keywords and Phrases
Product Development; Product Platforms; New products
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2006 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Jan 2006
