Research On Product Configuration Based On Product Platform

Nowadays highly competitive global market is redefining the way many companies do business.The new form of competitive advantage is mass customization and is a new way of viewing business competition, one that makes the identification and fulfillment of the wants and needs of individual customers paramount without sacrificing efficiency, effectiveness, and low costs.but mass production and customized production are incompatible, which are combined by mass customization.The product configuration based on platform is put forward by integrating product platform and configuration. It is accomplished by finding out the platform that the customer requires. The premise of this method is building product platform and product family. A new way for building platform is put forward which extract the characteristic parameters according to the main parameters affected on product structures and function and mapped to structure. The mapped structures are analyzed and combined. The product platforms and the database are built. At the same time, the mapped structures are divided into three types: the platform structure, the structures decided by characteristic parameters partly which is confirmed using assistant parameters and the variant structures.The process of product configuration is followed: Firstly, the characteristic parameters and assistant parameters are extracted by analyzing the customer requirements and are put in the computer. The platforms that the customer needs can be identified by Fuzzy Pattern Recognition approach from the database of the product platform series. Next platform structure trees are opened and the invariable structures can be got. For the structures decided by characteristic parameters partly, structures are confirmed using assistant parameters. The variable structures can be obtained by redesign or finding out the similar structure. Then the related parts are selected according to the configuration restrictions and rules. Finally BOM (bills of material) and cost are put out.Finally an illustrative case of Armoured Face Conveyor is reported to demonstrate the concrete application of the proposed methodology.This configuration process is realized by using Visual Basic and SQL Server Database, Database Link is realized by the ADO (Active Data Object) technology. This software can help the engineers determine the product structures according to the customer's demand, reduce workload, and improve work efficiency.