Research On Several Product Modular Design Methods For Mass Customization

Satisfaction of individual customer requirements has increasingly become essential for manufacturing firms to earn their superior competences, a key approach to which is rationally carrying out modular product design technology during mass customization. Under the support of National High-Tech. R&D Program for CIMS (Grant No. 2001AA412011), National Nature and Science Foundation (Grant No. 50275013), Liaoning Science and Technology Foundation (Grant No. 20022105) and Dalian Science and Technology Foundation (Grant No. 2002A1GX025), several methods corresponding to product modular design, module creation during the process product design, structure optimization of modular product family for MC, modular configuration design for MC and evaluation and selection of module suppliers are deeply discussed in this dissertation. The main work is described as follows:(1) The research background and theoretic basis are firstly illustrated, and a review and a summary of the development and status of MC and modular design are analyzed in detail. Moreover, existing deficient problems relevant to the mentioned theories, methods and techniques are synthesized, which brings forth the new tasks and directions of product modular design for mass customization. Finally, the project's meaning and main contents are presented respectively.(2) Module creation methods during the process of product are advanced. The product concept structure corresponding to individual requirements of customer is established in the beginning. Afterwards, components are analyzed hierarchically according to their correlation in life cycle, in order to generate the relationship matrix corresponding to interactive values. Modules are thus clustered using the fuzzy dendrogram representation method. In addition, the comprehensive evaluation method based on multi-professionals is applied to carry out the scheme selection procedure. According to the module creation criteria, a mathematic optimization measure based on the simulated annealing algorithm is applied to deal with module creation process after introducing the concept of virtual modules.(3) A structural optimization method of product family for MC is presented. Originating from the hierarchical model of similarity characteristics among components, a paralleling optimized method is constructed to target modularizing product family with aim to enhancing module creation optimization and platform commonality. In this study, the established mathematic optimized model is suitable to handle with quantitative definition of common platform during the course of programming product family, and the optimal layout is achieved byusing typical optimization tool. Moreover, comparison between the design scheme of modular product family and that of traditional design methodology is undertaken from the analytical view of production cost. In the end, an illustrative case is used to validate the advanced method.(4) To handle with rapid response problem of product design, configuration methods of modular design for MC are given. Product configuration design under modular architecture in product family toward a computational means is discussed, and a mathematic model to maximize comprehensive performances with a mixture of views from customer's needs is subsequently formulated. Accordingly, a simulated annealing technique is applied to numerically optimize the problem under ATO in a systematical form. In addition, a method based on the least squares approximation is advanced to support variant design, so that the trade-off between product performance and cost can be achieved. By using a typical case of mini refrigerator, the simulation results are thus derived and the method presented here shows its validity in personalization product customization. In addition, the predictability of variant configuration design can also be realized.(5) A method supporting design resource management for evaluating and selecting module suppliers is put forward. Concrete proces...