Purpose

The purpose of this research is to support the customization ability for industrial house building companies striving to offer individualized products but with a strategy which includes a production facility. This is accomplished by analyzing the as-is state in terms of existing engineering assets and by proposing a to-be state using the design platform and product lifecycle management (PLM) support.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is based on design research methodology and collected data are in-depth interviews, document reviews and workshops and method development. The theoretical baseline is product platforms and the design platform.

Findings

The analysis showed that despite use of a platform, inherent assets are disorganized. Still, the identified object-based engineering assets were possible to include in a conceptual proposal for better management, both in the process and product view, using an asset relationship matrix and a PLM system.

Practical implications

The results should be applicable for industrial house building and off-site construction companies and offers an approach to identify and manage their assets and platforms which are crucial to stay competitive.

Originality/value

Previous research on design platforms has focused on engineer-to-order companies within the mechanical industry. The contribution of this paper lies in the application and support of the design platform for industrial house building and the introduction of PLM system support.

When developing new products there are a multitude of requirements from different domains to consider making it a multidisciplinary activity. It involves stakeholders from the company and from the broader society. Requirements come from for example the customers, the production facility, suppliers, and governmental agencies placing safety and environmental regulations on the product. To manage all these heterogeneous requirements, a need of formalization and support emerges. The requirements can be managed using IT support. This functionality is often provided in contemporary PLM-systems. In this paper, it is investigated how a large industrial company with in-house design and manufacturing of consumer products formalize the requirements and handles them through the product development stages. The study involves corporate documents and interviewing staff from several departments of the company. Results show that while some aspects such as compliance with health and safety regulations are well supported, others are being addressed differently in each project with little formalization and IT support. This increases the risk of extra iterations in the development process. The paper discusses how to mitigate those risks and highlights some areas of possible improvement of the practices and IT support in product - as well as in production development.

Industrialized house-building (IHB) is a sector offering unique products by adopting an engineer-to-order (ETO) strategy. Customer satisfaction is achieved by adaptation of product solutions and the fast-paced introduction of new technology in combination with short lead-times and cost-efficient production. Product platforms is acknowledged as a strategic enabler for mass customization and increased competitiveness. The strategy has been a necessity in the mechanical industry for several decades. However, for IHB, platforms have only gained interest in recent years. In general, ETO companies struggle with adopting the common product platform approach, set by pre-defined modules and components. Predefinitions require standardization of the product offer which reduces the customization ability which is regarded as a competitive edge. The Design Platform (DP) approach was developed aimed to support ETO companies by utilizing different types of engineering assets in a coherent transdisciplinary model enabling efficient customization. The long-term aim of this work is to investigate and support the DP applicability in IHB to increase efficiency in development and delivery. For this article, data were gathered from a single case study, including workshops with company representatives combined with interviews and document analysis. Based on the data analysis, engineering assets were identified and characterized. Further, a conceptual PLM solution is proposed and outlined to support the DP application combined with the assets. The results suggest that a PLM system can host parts of the DP and that it is applicable in IHB.

A common strategy which has in many cases become a necessity in product developing companies is to apply platform thinking to some extent. Engineer-to-order (ETO) companies are firms that need to invest in a significant amount engineering time in each product ordered by customers. These companies have in the past been known to not be fully able to apply platform strategies. An area of concern to product development is the design and manufacture of machine tools aimed for part manufacturing which is a large investment and a critical bottle neck. As a response to these challenges the design platform (DP) concept was developed which is founded on the re-use of company assets. This paper aims to investigate the application of the DP in a company designing and producing unique high-pressure die casting tools for different applications and customers. To enable companies of this character to utilize platform thinking to a higher degree and thus increase the efficiency in product development, a focus is set on modelling and managing relations within the DP. In addition, a PDM system setup is proposed together with an integrated support application for the realisation in industry.

Manufacturing companies are continuously faced with requirements regarding technology novelty, shorter time to market, a higher level of functionality, and lower prices on their products. This is especially the case for companies developing and manufacturing highly customized products, also known as engineer-to-order (ETO) companies. The traditional view of the product lifecycle introduces the customer only at the sale and distribution phase, which is often concerned with identifying and transferring customer needs into fixed specifications that guide the development of end-consumer products. In the ETO industry, however, the customer is involved already at the scoping and quotation stage, and a significant amount of engineering needs to be performed for every customer order. Thus, ETO companies cannot work according to the traditional model described above since specific requirements are set directly by the customer, or a detailed requirements specification is missing and must be developed in cooperation with the customer. It is not uncommon that products are developed in joint ventures with the customer and run for several years, during which requirements change.

Product platform approaches have been generally accepted in the industry to serve a wide product variety while maintaining business efficiency. However, how to apply a product platform approach in ETO companies that face the reality described above is a challenge. Product platform approaches tend to require focused development of the platform, which, in turn, requires some knowledge about the future variants to be derived from the platform. The research presented in this thesis investigates the state of art and practice in the industry regarding the challenges, needs, and current use of product platforms. To respond to the identified need, a product platform approach is proposed that expands the scope of what a product platform has traditionally contained. The purpose of this proposal is to aid the development of highly customized products when physical modules or component scalability do not suffice. The resulting approach, the Design Platform Approach (DPA), provides a coherent model and methodology for heterogeneous engineering assets to be used in product development, supporting the activity of designing and existing solutions. The approach is based on identifying and modelling generic product and process items, which are the generic building blocks of the product, its structure, and the process of designing them. The generic product and process items are associated with the generic assets governing their design. By describing engineering assets that are the outcome of technology and product development, such as finished designs, design guidelines, constraints etc., in a standardized format, the DPA successively evolves.

This thesis outlines the DPA in detail and presents cases of applications that have focused on different aspects of the approach. Tools to support the DPA are presented and evaluated in different kinds of industries along with the specific methods used and literature summarization.

Tillverkande företag blir kontinuerligt utmanade med krav på kortare ledtider, lägre priser på sina produkter och en högre nivå av funktionalitet och teknik. Detta är särskilt fallet för företag som utvecklar och tillverkar högt kundanpassade produkter, även kända som engineer-to-order (ETO) företag. Den traditionella synen på produktlivscykeln introducerar kunden i försäljnings- och distributionsfasen, som ofta berör identifiering och överföring av kundbehov i kravspecifikationer som styr produktutvecklingen av produkter för slutkonsumenter. ETO-branschen skiljer sig i att kunden redan är involverad i offertstadiet och att en betydande mängd ingenjörsarbete behöver utföras för varje kundorder. ETO-företag kan således inte fungera som tidigare beskrivna företag eftersom specifika krav ställs direkt av kunden. Även motsatsen kan inträffa då en detaljerad kravspecifikation saknas och behöver utvecklas i samarbete med kunden. Det är inte ovanligt att produkter utvecklas i gemensamma projekt med kunden och att projekt drivs under flera år under vilka krav tenderar att ändras.

Plattformsstrategier har accepterats inom industrin för att effektivt kunna hantera ett brett produktsortiment samtidigt som företagets effektivitet upprätthålls. En utmaning är dock hur ETO företag som står inför den verklighet som beskrivs ovan bör applicera en plattformsstrategi. Plattformsmetoder tenderar att kräva en fokuserad utveckling av plattformen vilket i sin tur kräver viss kunskap om vilka framtida varianter som ska skapas från plattformen. Forskningen som presenteras i denna avhandling undersöker litteratur och praktik inom industrin gällande utmaningar, behov och användning av plattformar. För att svara på det identifierade behovet föreslås en plattformsmodell och metod som utökar omfattningen av vad en produktplattform traditionellt har varit. Syftet är att stödja utvecklingen av höganpassade produkter när fysiska moduler eller skalbara komponenter inte räcker till. Det resulterande tillvägagångssättet, Design Platform (DP) -modellen, ger ett sammanhängande sätt för att hantera ingenjörstillgångar som ska användas vid produktutveckling och inkluderar både konstruktionsprocessen samt befintliga produktlösningar. Tillvägagångssättet bygger på att identifiera och modellera den generiska produkten och processen som är produktens generiska byggstenar, dess struktur och dess process. Dessa kopplas samman med de generiska tillgångarna som stödjer konstruktion och återanvändning. Genom att beskriva ingenjörstillgångarna, som är resultatet av teknik och produktutveckling, som färdiga konstruktioner, riktlinjer för konstruktion, krav etc. i ett standardiserat format, utvecklas plattformen successivt.

Denna avhandling presenterar DP-modellen och implementationer som har fokuserat på olika aspekter av DP-modellen. Flera verktyg för att stödja DP-modellen presenteras och utvärderas i olika branscher samt diskuteras i ljuset av den forskningsmetodik och litteratur.

The advances in additive manufacturing (AM) for high grade steels has in some cases made it possible to manufacture die inserts for demanding processes like high pressure die casting (HPDC). However, several challenges remain before this becomes commonplace. There is still a need of secondary manufacturing steps on the insert after printing. Also, extensive design changes must be made on the die inserts to fully utilize the advantages of AM. Further, the die insert is only one of many parts needed in the die assembly. Much of the die manufacturing will still be done by conventional methods. In this paper, several companies involved in the manufacturing and use of dies for HPDC have been interviewed on that they think is the future role of AM in their business. The result is that the effect of just printing the inserts would will be quite limited at present. Bringing down the time spent on die manufacture is important since that time then could be spent on improving the manufacturability of the parts.

Original equipment suppliers (OES) that develop unique products are continuously faced with changing requirements during both the quotation and product development processes. This challenge is a different reality from companies that develop off-the-shelf products for the end consumer, which use fixed specifications and where product platforms have been a strong enabler for efficient mass customization. However, product platforms cannot adequately support companies working as OES. The reason is that a high level of customization is required which means that interfaces cannot be standardized, the performance is not negotiable, requirements are not initially fixed, and the specific system interacts with, is affected by, or affects other systems that are simultaneously developed in a transdisciplinary environment. The design platform (DP) approach provides a coherent environment for heterogeneous and transdisciplinary design resources to be used in product development by supporting both designing and off-the-shelf solutions. This research describes the introduction, application and further development of the DP approach at an automotive supplier to support the development of customized solutions when traditional modularity or platform scalability do not suffice. A computer tool called Design Platform Manager has been developed to support the creation and visualization of the DP. The support tool has a connection to a product data management database to link the platform model to the various kinds of engineering assets needed or intended to support variant creation. Finally, the support tool was evaluated by the case company representatives showing promising results. 

Modularisation and platform strategies enable efficient utilization of resources through economies of scale and are therefore increasingly important for manufacturing companies. On the product side, modules are often considered the basis of product platforms by enabling a variety of product variants by combining interchangeable modules into different products. On the process side, modularisation enables faster and cheaper development of new product variants by reusing physical components, interfaces, and production equipment.

The benefits of product platforms and modularisation have led two global product developing and manufacturing companies to initiate research projects within this field. The companies have previously made unsuccessful attempts to implement modularisation founded on a componentbased approach and the firms are now searching for other methods to get the benefits of modularisation.

This paper describes the initial state of practice in modularisation and product platforms in the two companies in their attempts to move from a purely physical approach to modularisation into the universal view that is presented in the Design Platform approach. Here, a platform is viewed as an evolutionary entity involving several company assets such as processes, knowledge, methods, and relationships which are essential to gain the benefits of platforms also in the development phase. The Design Platform contains various concrete resources such as the geometry of physical components, but also inhomogeneous resources such as design rules, processes, methods and design automation.

The results point to specific barriers that the companies experience when trying to adopt a modularisation strategy. Several barriers are experienced by both companies while some are specific for one of the companies. Through several workshops, the concepts of the Design Platform and a flexible view on modularisation are introduced, and their possibilities are elaborated and appreciated by the workshop participants.

System suppliers, e.g. original equipment suppliers, are important for the success of many products. They design a unique solution, often in close collaboration with other companies, based on different product concepts and/or core technologies. The solution can then be manufactured in different quantities depending on the client’s need. High level of customization is required as the interfaces are not standardized, the performance is not negotiable, requirements are not initially fixed and the specific system interacts with, is affected by, or affects other systems that are simultaneously developed. A system supplier commonly designs and manufactures solutions for different OEMs and must support many models and variants in their product portfolios. Efficiency, short lead-time, continuous technology development, and adaptability are essential for the competitive edge. A product platform approach has been a success for many companies to enable variety at low cost, however, it is not applicable for system suppliers. This work describes the result from a case study where a platform approach enabling a new way of structuring, publishing and managing design assets and processes was introduced at a company with the purpose to improve the ability to respond to changing requirements in the quotation process and the subsequent product development activities.

For many companies, it is a challenge to balance product variety and cost, i.e. external and internal efficiency. Product platforms has been the dominant solution for a business targeting mass-customization. The main idea is to dived the product into modules that can be shared among different product variants. This has been a success on the consumer market, however, many manufacturing companies are engineer-to-order (ETO) oriented, such as original equipment suppliers (OES). They design a unique solution, often in close collaboration with other companies, based on different product concepts and/or core technologies. For these companies, there is a strategic need for a platform model influenced by the principles of masscustomization, although, not limited to only include modules. In this work, a novel platform model, called Design Platform is described. The model has been developed and applied in cooperation with four companies. The Design Platform provides a coherent environment for management of heterogeneous design assets to be used in product development and supports an improved ability to master fluctuating requirements and systematic introduction of new technologies.