Application Of Product Platform Design And Modularity In Automotive Industry

Nowadays the customers are demanding more individual products, but aren’twilling to pay more than for a mass-produced product. Hence, the automotive industryis facing the problem to provide individual product at a price of a massproducedproduct. Modular or platform architecture is a way to solve this problem. Thusplatform design is largely used in the automotive industry. Therefore, a completemodular product design is more flexible compared to a platform design. Regarding thestrategically aspect, it can be the same as for the platform design. Regardless, it israrely used in the automotive industry. A change of the present product architecturewould require large investments. Furthermore, most vehicle architectures have beengrown for many years of further development. In this thesis it will be analyzed thedifference between those both product architecture concepts, the advantages anddisadvantages and whether the use of modularity for the vehicle architecture ispracticable for the automotive industries.