A Model On Analyzing The Customizability Of Modules In Improvement Of Mass Customized Product Family Oriented To Customer Needs

Product family improvement is a way of developing product families. It usually occurs a period of time later after the fruit of a bran-new developed product family has been put into market. It is subjecting to the changed customer needs relative to that of having been identified while the bran-new product family was being developed, and is aiming to reconfigure[0] product rapidly with less redesign endeavor subjecting to some constraints of cost and efficiency simultaneity so as to satisfy dynamic customer needs. Obviously, customer need is the reason and the goal of product family improvement. On the other hand, product family consists of common modules and customized ones under specifically configuration mechanism. It's integrant to select appropriate modules as the customized ones, i.e. establishing the customizability of modules. So the method of customer needs mapping in the process of product family improvement, and the procedures of establishing the customizability of modules based the mapping have been studied.Firstly, three elementary theories of customer needs mapping, namely Axiomatic Design, Product Family Architecture, and Quality Function Development, are presented. The basic concepts of the three theories are reviewed.Secondly, an architecture of customer needs mapping which is applied to improving product family is put forward based on the above theories. The achievement of customer needs mapping consists of three steps, i.e. from customer needs to functional requirements, from functional requirements to design parameters, and from design parameters to modules. And the universal course of the mapping path in the process of product family improving is put forward.Thirdly, the method of customer needs mapping based on enterprise history data is researched. The process of mining the association rules of customer needs and functional requirements in history database using association rule mining is studied, and the approach of confirming the mapping between customer needs and functional requirements under the scheme of Quality Function Development which is based the rules is analyzed. An example is given to illustrate the application of the approach. And the mapping process from functional requirements to modules base on history data is explained.Fourthly, the method of customer needs mapping based on extending customer need is researched. The definition of extending customer need is put forward, which can be classified into two types, namely the type of requirement character extending, and the type of requirement character value extending. According to the classification, the mapping process from customer needs to modules of the two types of extending customer needs is researched respectively.Finally, a model to analyze the customizability of modules for product family improvement is built. The framework of optimizing design parameters and adjusting modules is brought forward. And in this model, the customization effect of the functions of a module to customer, the interrelationships between modules, and the cost of a module are analyzed, and then a customizability index is set up to confirm whether a module is adapted to be a customizable one or not based on the previous analysis. And an example is given to illustrate the application of the model.