Product Platform Design
Product platform is a set of common elements (components, interfaces, processes) that are used in different product variants known as a product family. Product platform has important advantages, including cost reduction (due to economy of scale), inventory reduction, and reduced product development time. However, poorly designed product platform could result in cannibalization of the product by another product of the same firm, loss of performance for high-end product, and acting as a barrier to future innovation. We are interested in exploring new design methodologies to design and develop optimized product platform architectures.
One case study, which implemented platform architecture design methodology developed in this laboratory, involves water purifier product family. The objective of the case study was to proposed and design product platform architecture of the water purifier product family, highlighted in the figure below.
Water purifier product platform architecture need to be designed in such a way that product variants from the platform need to address the need of customers, while satisfying various stakeholder's requirements. To address variety of needs and requirements, a new product platform architecture design process, shown below, is proposed and implemented.
Resulting water purifier product platform architecture options are shown in the figure below. Once the platform architecture options are defined, various analyses were conducted to assess the advantages and disadvantages of each option. The case study demonstrated feasibility of the newly proposed product platform architecture methodology.
One case study, which implemented platform architecture design methodology developed in this laboratory, involves water purifier product family. The objective of the case study was to proposed and design product platform architecture of the water purifier product family, highlighted in the figure below.
Water purifier product platform architecture need to be designed in such a way that product variants from the platform need to address the need of customers, while satisfying various stakeholder's requirements. To address variety of needs and requirements, a new product platform architecture design process, shown below, is proposed and implemented.
Resulting water purifier product platform architecture options are shown in the figure below. Once the platform architecture options are defined, various analyses were conducted to assess the advantages and disadvantages of each option. The case study demonstrated feasibility of the newly proposed product platform architecture methodology.
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