Dynamics of Product Platform Lifecycle and Disposition Management

According the present thinking, a function based platform approach is most virtuous for configurable products. Although there are successful cases of utilising this type of platform in industry, success has often been only temporary. This is due that challenges set by long-term platform life cycle management has not been addressed adequately. Dynamic Modularisation (Dymo) is a business and product development paradigm, which aims to add the processes that are needed in handling the life-cycle variation to the platform-paradigm. However achieving the dynamic platform and getting rid of the static nature normally associated to modular structures is much more easily proposed than implemented. The cause-effect chains in product structure evolution are numerous and dispositional changes are not effecting only from design phase to later product life-cycle phases, but changes in for example subcontracting could require re-planning of the product structure. In this paper cause-effect chains in product structure evolution are examined. The attention is focused to requirement management and release planning processes, which can be seen as key processes enabling dynamic platform management.