Research On Model And Method Of The Product Family Hierarchical Connected Design And Development

Being a nascent field of engineering design, product family design has matured rapidly in the past decade. In an effort to improve customization for today's highly competitive global marketplace, product families and platform-based product are utilized to increase variety, shorten lead-times, and reduce costs. The key to a successful product family is the product platform from which it is derived either by adding, removing, or substituting one or more modules to the platform or by scaling the platform in one or more dimensions to target specific market niches.In previous literatures, methods of product family design for main function parameters and correlative subordinate function parameters are adopted respectively, so that the leader-follower relationship between them and the research on cooperative design with function parameters are neglected.Aiming at the realistic background, systemic research on model and method of the product family hierarchical connected design and development are made. The study is not only of important theory value, but also of positive reality meaning. The main work and innovation points of this paper are following:Firstly, the deficiencies in the study on product family design are pointed out based on summarizing the current research of product family design. And a viewpoint of hierarchical connected design is proposed.Secondly, the concept model frame of a two-dimension analytical model based on the composing levels and developed processes of product family is proposed. Based on systemic view and method, two-dimension analytical model of product family is built. How the two-dimension model is constructed and how it evolves is discussed.Thirdly, based on two-dimension model of product family, the process of hierarchical connected design is proposed. It includes making product family strategies, constructing two-dimension model of product family, generating platform-based product variants and customization product being configured.Fourthly, several critical problems connected with hierarchical connected design are researched. One is about uncertainty during designing product family. Based on fuzzy theory, fuzzy bi-level programming is used for optimization design. One is about how to construct the frame of collaborative design for hierarchical connected design of product families. Another is about how to integrate the two-dimension model of product family and the method of hierarchical connected design into knowledge-intensive support system.Fifthly, the models and methods of hierarchical connected design, studied in this paper, are applied in two examples.Finally, the total work of the paper is summarized and the vista of further research is made.