Configuration Management Of Product Family For Mass Customization

With the increasing competition in the global market, Mass customization has recently received much attention and popularity from both industry and academia alike. It has been considered as a new battlefield for manufacturing enterprises. It is changing the engineer methods, manufacture methods and sale methods. The high product variety increases the complexity of engineer, manufacture, and logistic management. Configuration management of product family reduces the amount of BOM and process flow as an approach of data management. With the data redundancy reduced, the efficiency of sale, engineer and manufacturing is improved. The method and technology of configuration management of product family is researched in detail. In chapter two, the mode of configuration management of product family is researched in detail. At first, the challenge which mass customization Enterprises are confronted with is summarized. To meet the challenge, corresponding strategies are researched. These strategies include strategies of product development and manufacturing strategies. On the basis of these strategies, the mode of product development and manufacturing for mass customization is researched. In mass customization enterprises the product development process is divided into two child processes: development of product family and product platform, configuration design of product family. The manufacturing process of customized product is divided into two processes: mass production of common parts, group production of customized parts. Configuration management of product family which is the basis of the modes is analyzed. The framework of configuration management is proposed. The whole operation process is researched under the framework. In chapter three, the technology of product family modeling is researched in detail. At first, through analyzing existing product family models, the target and principles which a good product family model should satisfy are proposed. Then product family architecture and the multi-view of product family model is researched. The structure model of product family based on GBOM and the knowledge representation of the model is researched. In the end a motorcycle product family modeling case is given to prove the method feasibility. In chapter four, the product family configuration technology is researched. At first, existing methods of product configuration are summarized. Based on the product family model proposed on above chapter sale configuration methods, engineering configuration methods and manufacturing configuration methods are researched. The reasoning method based on feature is applied to sale configuration. The reasoning method based on constrains and case is applied to engineering configuration. Production flow analysis plays an important role on the manufacturing configuration. The application of above technology in different phase of configuration management of product family is researched in detail.