engleski

Configuration and Change Management Approach in Product Variant Design of Chillers

The objective of the research presented in this paper is to present an approach to Configuration and Change Management (CCM) in product variant design of chillers. According to today's requirements requested from manufacturers to rapidly introduce new products and update existing ones while reducing their costs and improving their quality for the purpose of maximizing the market opportunities, a satisfactory system option/solution must be offered. In this case, configuration and change management for products is a very common option, which can deliver a competitive advantage on the market. Due to very high demands in cooling plant design set in recent years, chillers have grown in size and complexity. Chiller manufacturers must be able to offer in their product ranges more customizable products with multiple options of product variants (based on a known product platform), which make changes to product design highly complicated. The main objective of proposed approach is to achieve optimal system architecture for the observed product variants, including feedback in the phase of changing product properties (this sometimes requires several iteration steps). “Optimal architecture” refers to an architecture that is optimal based on several criteria: its performance (in terms of an energy efficient product with minimum electricity consumption, minimum levels of sound power and pressure, minimum required dimensions (with the lowest possible weight)) and minimum price of the product. The approach used is also presented graphically as a flowchart diagram. The approach presented was primarily developed to assist all mechanical designers engaging in the composition of industry-specific product configurations (chillers) and provide them with guidance when selecting appropriate product alternatives. It helps them focus on these essential properties, which gives them a competitive advantage over other manufacturers. The approach was verified against two examples of chillers: an air cooled chiller and a water cooled chiller, including the results obtained and their discussion.

Approach ; Configuration and Change Management (CCM) ; product variant design ; optimal system architecture ; chiller

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