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Integrated Development of Modular Product Families: A Methods Toolkit

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Advances in Product Family and Product Platform Design

Abstract

An integrated approach for developing modular product families was developed at the PKT Institute to create individualized products for globally marketable prices. The integrated PKT-approach for developing modular product families aims to generate maximum external product variety, using the lowest possible internal process and component variety. Based on existing methods for reducing internal variety, the approach provides a toolkit of combinable method units. Tailored support is provided by this toolkit for specific needs and situations of companies facing the challenge of reducing internal variety. Several industrial case studies demonstrate how the use of one method unit or the combination of several method units supports the development of modular product families during specific corporate challenges and aims. The first section describes the challenges being addressed by the integrated PKT-approach. A survey of research fields dealing with these challenges is presented in the second section. A product family example is presented to demonstrate the state-of-the-art methods and the method units from the integrated PKT-approach. Their application in industrial projects is shown in Sect. 10.7, which is followed by the future prospects for enhancing the integrated PKT-approach.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Product Development and Mechanical Engineering Design, Hamburg University of Technology, Denickestraße 17, 21073, Hamburg, Germany

    Dieter Krause, Gregor Beckmann, Sandra Eilmus, Nicolas Gebhardt, Henry Jonas & Robin Rettberg

Authors
  1. Dieter Krause
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  2. Gregor Beckmann
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  3. Sandra Eilmus
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  4. Nicolas Gebhardt
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  5. Henry Jonas
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  6. Robin Rettberg
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dieter Krause .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    Timothy W. Simpson

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Jianxin (Roger) Jiao

  3. School of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA

    Zahed Siddique

  4. Engineering Product Development, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore, Singapore

    Katja Hölttä-Otto

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Krause, D., Beckmann, G., Eilmus, S., Gebhardt, N., Jonas, H., Rettberg, R. (2014). Integrated Development of Modular Product Families: A Methods Toolkit. In: Simpson, T., Jiao, J., Siddique, Z., Hölttä-Otto, K. (eds) Advances in Product Family and Product Platform Design. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7937-6_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7937-6_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-7936-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7937-6

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