The paper studies what kind of support could be applied to the management of partly configurable modular systems. The main tasks of product management, product portfolio management and product variety management are defined. In addition, a partly configurable product structure and modular system are defined. Because the limited support in the literature for managing partly configurable modular systems, the article reviews previous product development cases in which authors have been involved on lessons learnt basis, i.e., if the methods and tools used in the cases could provide support for the research objective. As a result, the existing definition of the modular system should be extended by the concepts of non-module and design decision sequence description when dealing with partly configurable modular systems. This is because engineer-to-order should be made possible in cases where it brings clear added value to the customer compared to completely pre-defined solutions that may limit the customer's interest in the offering. Tools to assess the impact of changes to the product offering are required. These should be taken into account in frameworks that are used in method and tool development.
New technologies have major effects on the profitability of companies and the economic growth of society. If appropriate technologies can be routinely selected, then it is possible to achieve sustainability at a company level. Knowledge management (KM) can be used to support technology decision making and give an understanding of the potential of particular technologies in a specific business environment. In this study, the design research methodology (DRM) is used with three case studies in an industry environment to develop and evaluate a novel technology valuation method (TVM). The proposed six-step TVM focuses on the acquisition, modeling, and validation of product-related knowledge to support KM related to technology decisions. The contribution of this research is to use distinctions between product properties and behaviors with a disposition toward understanding the potential of technology. During the process, tacit knowledge is made visible and documented, which supports the reliability of technology decisions and enables companies to gain sustainability.
The aim of this paper is to the advance pragmatic constructivist understanding about communication in the productdevelopment context. In particular, the paper provides new understanding about how proactive truth about designknowledge can be constructed and communicated within product development actors. The paper shows how companyrepresentatives in the manufacturing environment, e.g., managers and engineers can together understand the customervalue-creation mechanisms of a specific product and integrate their expert knowledge into visual form. Building thecollective understanding requires communication between these actors. Ultimately, the actors may be able to construct auseful proactive truth about related business potentials and thereby support technology management in the productdevelopment context.
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