A manufacturing-oriented approach for multi-platforming product family design with modified genetic algorithm

With highly fragmented market and increased competition, platform-based product family design has been recognized as an effective method to construct a product line that satisfies diverse customer’s demands while aiming to keep design and production cost-effective. The success of the resulting product family often relies on properly resolving the inherent tradeoff between commonality across the family and performance loss. In this paper, a systematic multi-platforming product family approach is proposed to design a scale-based product family. In the light of the basic premise that increased commonality implies enhanced manufacturing efficiency, we present an effective platform decision strategy to quantify family design configuration using a commonality index that couples design varieties with production variation. Meanwhile, unlike many existing methods that assume a single given platform configuration, the proposed method addresses the multi-platforming configuration across the family, and can generate alternative product family solutions with different levels of commonality. A modified genetic algorithm is developed to solve the aggregated multiobjective optimization problem and an industrial example of a planetary gear train for drills is given to demonstrate the proposed method.

[1]  Lucienne Blessing,et al.  Observations on Some German Contributions to Engineering Design In Memory of Professor Wolfgang Beitz , 2000 .

[2]  Liu Zhuo,et al.  Towards Effective Multi-platforming Design of Product Family using Genetic Algorithm , 2007, 2007 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering.

[3]  Timothy W. Simpson,et al.  Product platform design and customization: Status and promise , 2004, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing.

[4]  Kikuo Fujita,et al.  Product Variety Optimization Simultaneously Designing Module Combination and Module Attributes , 2004, Concurr. Eng. Res. Appl..

[5]  J. Park,et al.  Development of a production cost estimation framework to support product family design , 2005 .

[6]  Li Li,et al.  A Tandem Evolutionary Algorithm for Platform Product Customization , 2007, J. Comput. Inf. Sci. Eng..

[7]  Kalyanmoy Deb,et al.  Muiltiobjective Optimization Using Nondominated Sorting in Genetic Algorithms , 1994, Evolutionary Computation.

[8]  Karl T. Ulrich,et al.  Product Design and Development , 1995 .

[9]  Michael J. Scott,et al.  Effective Product Family Design Using Preference Aggregation , 2006 .

[10]  Farrokh Mistree,et al.  Product platform design: method and application , 2001 .

[11]  Zahed Siddique,et al.  Product Platform and Product Family Design , 2006 .

[12]  Fredrik Roos,et al.  Relations between size and gear ratio in spur and planetary gear trains , 2005 .

[13]  Panos Y. Papalambros,et al.  Quantitative platform selection in optimal design of product families, with application to automotive engine design , 2006 .

[14]  Matthew B. Parkinson,et al.  MULTICRITERIA OPTIMIZATION IN PRODUCT PLATFORM DESIGN , 1999, DAC 1999.

[15]  Michael J. Scott,et al.  Meaningful tradeoffs in product family design considering monetary and technical aspects of commonality , 2005 .

[16]  Roger Jianxin Jiao,et al.  Product family design and platform-based product development: a state-of-the-art review , 2007, J. Intell. Manuf..

[17]  Candace A. Yano,et al.  Product line selection and pricing under a share-of-surplus choice model , 2003, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[18]  Timothy W. Simpson,et al.  Assessing Variable Levels of Platform Commonality Within a Product Family Using a Multiobjective Genetic Algorithm , 2004, Concurr. Eng. Res. Appl..

[19]  Singiresu S Rao,et al.  A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for Mixed-Discrete Design Optimization , 2005 .

[20]  Farrokh Mistree,et al.  Balancing Commonality and Performance within the Concurrent Design of Multiple Products in a Product Family , 2001, Concurr. Eng. Res. Appl..

[21]  Timothy W. Simpson,et al.  Introduction of a product family penalty function using physical programming , 2000 .

[22]  Timothy W. Simpson,et al.  A Variation-Based Method for Product Family Design , 2002 .

[23]  Farrokh Mistree,et al.  Platform Design for Customizable Products as a Problem of Access in a Geometric Space , 2003 .

[24]  Marc H. Meyer,et al.  The power of product platforms : building value and cost leadership , 1997 .

[25]  Sridhar Kota,et al.  A Metric for Evaluating Design Commonality in Product Families , 2000 .

[26]  Michael J. Scott,et al.  Product platform design through sensitivity analysis and cluster analysis , 2004, DAC 2004.

[27]  Patrick M. Reed,et al.  Multi-Objective Design Optimization for Product Platform and Product Family Design Using Genetic Algorithms , 2005, DAC 2005.

[28]  Panos Y. Papalambros,et al.  Platform Selection Under Performance Bounds in Optimal Design of Product Families , 2005 .

[29]  Mitchell M. Tseng,et al.  Understanding product family for mass customization by developing commonality indices , 2000 .

[30]  Zbigniew Michalewicz,et al.  Evolutionary Computation 2 , 2000 .

[31]  Michael P. Martinez,et al.  Effective Product Family Design Using Physical Programming , 2002 .

[32]  Thorsten Blecker,et al.  The Development of a Component Commonality Metric for Mass Customization , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

[33]  Timothy W. Simpson,et al.  A genetic algorithm based method for product family design optimization , 2003, DAC 2002.

[34]  Timothy W. Simpson,et al.  Commonality indices for product family design: a detailed comparison , 2006 .

[35]  Henri J. Thevenot,et al.  A comprehensive metric for evaluating component commonality in a product family , 2007, DAC 2006.

[36]  Roger Jianxin Jiao,et al.  Architecture of Product Family: Fundamentals and Methodology , 2001, Concurr. Eng. Res. Appl..

[37]  Zahed Siddique,et al.  Product platform and product family design : methods and applications , 2010 .

[38]  Roger Jianxin Jiao,et al.  Process Platform Planning for Variety Coordination From Design to Production in Mass Customization Manufacturing , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

[39]  Roger Jianxin Jiao,et al.  A generic genetic algorithm for product family design , 2007, J. Intell. Manuf..

[40]  Yaochu Jin,et al.  Dynamic Weighted Aggregation for evolutionary multi-objective optimization: why does it work and how? , 2001 .

[41]  Timothy W. Simpson,et al.  Towards a Suite of Problems for Comparison of Product Platform Design Methods: A Proposed Classification , 2006, DAC 2006.

[42]  Mei Zhang,et al.  A Product and Process Modeling Based Approach to Study Cost Implications of Product Variety in Mass Customization , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.