Product Family and Modularity: New Options through Additive
Manufacturing
Timothy W. Simpson, Michael A. Yukish, Simon W. Miller
TBD
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Integration fo Design and Manufacturing
2 – Concept and application formulated
5 – Key elements demonstrated in relevant environment
New
09/01/2016
08/31/2017
0%
$75,000 (requested)
TBD
$0
Industrial Relevance
In today’s global economy, companies often struggle to meet the diverse needs of their customers. The
proposed work seeks to enable companies to increase product variety and reduce manufacturing cost
and lead time through the combination of platforms and modularity while utilizing the new capabilities
of additive manufacturing (AM). This will drive user customization and increased customer satisfaction
without a drastic increase in manufacturing cost by leveraging the “economies of one” enabled by AM.
Problem Statement
To compete in today’s global marketplace, many companies are utilizing product families to increase
product variety, improve customer satisfaction, shorten lead-times, and reduce costs. The key to a
successful product family is the platform from which it is derived, i.e., the common “elements” that are
reused across the entire line of products. A successful platform is shared across multiple products in the
family, and individual products are derived from the platform by adding, subtracting, or substituting
modules to create unique variants for different market segments.
Additive manufacturing is changing the economics of production and has the potential to redefine what
we design and how we design it. Additive manufacturing requires little to no tooling, fixturing, etc.
when producing parts. This enables “economies of one”, and new economic models and cost metrics
are needed to understand the impact additive manufacturing on product family design and development.
While many people are investigating its uses for individual product design and development, we
propose to investigate its use in the production of families of products. In particular, how does additive
manufacturing create new options when using platforms and modularity to realize a product family?
Combining AM and Product Families to Enable Customization
(last image from http://www.pdz.ethz.ch/projects/focus-project---addit.html)
Center for e-Design
PSU Site Planning Meeting – June 2016
Approach and Method
Our approach to investigate the implications of additive manufacturing (AM) on product family design
is to develop new rules and economic models that can be used to develop better product families that
incorporate AM. These rules/models/metrics will be derived from a literature review and novel metrics
that incorporate attributes specific to AM, economic, sustainability estimates, etc. The method and
metrics will be applied to a suitable product family that could utilize AM. In particular, we will design,
print, and validate our approach through a consumer case study. Finally, we will apply the method to a
product family and compare/contrast the influences with and without AM as a manufacutirng tool.
Deliverables and Benefits
This research project looks to take advantage of the new design freedoms that additive manufacturing
(AM) provides while addressing the challenges it introduces into the product family design process. In
particular, we seek to:
 Understand how AM expands the definition of Platforms and Product Families through new
design metrics and cost analysis
 Develop metrics for characterizing effectiveness of product families that use AM
 Develop cost analyses that inform decisions about the integration of AM into product families
The knowledge produced from this effort can enable further product family design methods such as:
geometric and structural optimization, product variety optimization, commonality decisions, product
family redesign, shape commonality, etc. Companies that have benefited from our previous product
family work include B/E Aerospace, Electrolux, Flowserve, GE, Heil, LG, P&G, United Technologies,
and Whirlpool to name a few.
Potential application areas
Product families exist in a number of markets from consumer products such as power tools, bicycles,
furntiture, smartphones, computers, etc. to commercial products such as aircraft, automobiles, etc. The
introduction of AM affords new customization strategies that enable Design for X, such as Design for
Human Variability where ergonomics and “right-sized” artifacts can be produced under one parametric
design space. This would enable, for instance, patient-specific implants and prosthetics that would
otherwise be too expensive to manufacture.
Project Plan and Progress
A successful project would run 10-12 months and entail the following tasks and timeline.
Tasks and timeline
1
2
3
4
Months
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
Task 1 Review product family and AM literature
Task 2 Develop economic models for AM
Task 3 Identify suitable product family example
Task 4 Design platform and modules for family
Task 5 Fabricate, print, and assemble variants
Task 6 Validate with consumer feedback
Task 7 Compare cost and commonality metrics
Task 8 Document results and recommendations
Center for e-Design
PSU Site Planning Meeting – June 2016
Current State of Practice and Research
Despite decades of advancements in design, the tools for efficient and effective product family design
are still lacking. Meanwhile, the capabilities of additive manufacturing (AM) are evolving rapidly in
both polymers and metals, and few have explored the implications of AM on design decisions and
product platform. As a result, there are no metrics or guidance on what to platform or how to platform
with AM, and companies are not leveraging the new “economies of one” that AM enables. A detailed
review of recent literature will be conducted to confirm this before exploring economic models for AM
as they relate to product family design. Our existing product family design metrics will then be adapted
for this work, and we will identify a suitable product family to test and validate with consumers.
How Ours is Different
Our work will shift company thinking from a reactive mentality to a proactive platforming mindset that
will enable companies to satisfy the diverse demands of their distributed global customers in a cost
effective and timely manner. This will be accomplished by identifying the key drivers of variety within
a product family and mapping that to common platform “elements” and key modules for differentiation.
Our approach will thus marry platform design principles with economic advantages of additive
manufacturing to enable rapid, cost-effective product customization.
Center for e-Design
PSU Site Planning Meeting – June 2016