Analysis and improvement of product modularization methods: Their ability to deal with complex products

Tobias K.P. Holmqvist and Magnus L. Persson

Systems Engineering, 2003, vol. 6, issue 3, 195-209

Abstract: 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

Date: 2003
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