engleski

A Conceptual Framework of Product Family Architecture

For the description of product family a number of modelling methods exist in literature. These methods describe individual applied research. Thus, they are limited for the practical and singular purposes. Research on the product family development based on theory is emerging. The product family development is related with the product architecture, product family architecture, product platform as well as configurable product. The separate meaning of the product platforms and configurable products are accepted in the literature. Opposite to this, product architecture and product family architecture are often treated as synonyms. In this article differences between product architecture and product family architecture are discussed. The term product architecture should be used when a company wants to redesign individual product because of the certain benefit from one or more phases of life cycle. When commonality and variety should be planned for a related group of products (product variants) the term product family architecture should be used. Our research question is: What is a product family architecture and what are the elements of which product family architecture consists of? Description of product family architecture involves description on three levels: domains concepts, the notation used to define the elements of domains and the design rules. In this article the domains of a product family architecture is explained.

product family; product family architecture; product architecture

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