Modularity and Commonality Research: Past Developments and Future Opportunities

Abstract

Research on modularity and commonality has grown substantially over the past 15 years.Searching 36 journals over more than the past 35 years, I identify over 160 references in the engineering and management literature that focus on modularity or commonality in the product and process development context. Each of the references is analyzed along the dimensions subject, effect, and research method. The subjects of these studies have been products, processes, organizations, and even innovations, although the set of references shows a strong preference towards products. Similarly, a broad range of effects has been studied, albeit with the topic cost dominating all other effects. A variety of research methods has been applied to the study of modularity and commonality but the distribution of research methods differs substantially for modularity and commonality research. Despite the wealth of existing research, there are still significant opportunities for future research. In particular, studies that incorporate modularity and commonality's multiple effects on various players along the supply chain, that combine multiple research methods, and that follow systems over time appear very promising.

The power of integrality: Linkages between product architecture, innovation, and industry structure

“…Conceptually, product architectures are often categorized into one of two archetypes: modular or integral. While conceptually very powerful, the operationalization of these archetypes has proven to be quite difficult, and various approaches have been chosen to overcome this difficulty (Fixson 2007). For example, some scholars use indirect measures, i.e., they assess the degree of product modularity indirectly by asking managers to estimate the degree to which certain consequences that are often associated with modularity -for example, the degree to which a buyer can customize a product, or the degree to which a manufacturing process allows late configuration -are more or less true for their own products (Duray, Ward, Milligan and Berry 2000;Worren, Moore and Cardona 2002;Tu, Vonderembse, Ragu-Nathan and Ragu-Nathan 2004).…”

Relação Entre a Modularidade No Projeto E Na Produção Em Uma Montadora Automotiva No Brasil

“…A comunalidade (do termo em inglês commonality) é um conceito geralmente mais relacionado a produtos do que processos, o qual explora a ideia de usar componentes idênticos em uma configuração de produto, mas em produtos diferentes (FIXSON, 2007). Em termos de variedade de produtos, a similaridade pode criar outras dificuldades: Pasche e Sköld (2012) argumentam que os produtos podem se tornar muito semelhantes, com maior grau de uniformidade entre diferentes produtos e/ou marcas.…”

“…Assim, as relações entre arquiteturas de produtos e sistemas entre empresas podem não só ter a MID influenciando a MIP, mas também a MIP ter algum impacto sobre a MID (TAKEISHI; FUJIMOTO, 2003). Além disso, as trajetórias das relações entre MID e MIP dependem da unidade de análise considerada (FIXSON;PARK, 2008).…”

“…CAMPAGNOLO; CAMUFFO, 2010;JACOBS et al, 2011;SANCHEZ, 2013;LUCARELLI et al, 2013) alegam que essas relações ainda não estão plenamente definidas na literatura e na prática. Argumenta-se que as trajetórias das relações entre os tipos de modularidade envolvidos (projeto e produção) dependeriam do objeto de análise considerado (FIXSON;PARK, 2008). Essa situação seria motivadora para analisar como a modularidade pode afetar o projeto simultâneo de produtos e sistemas de produção (CAMPAGNOLO; CAMUFFO, 2010), uma vez que o impacto do projeto modular em processos produtivos é considerado um campo interessante de pesquisas futuras (JACOBS et al, 2011).…”

What Exactly is Product Modularity? The Answer Depends on Who You Ask

“…In fact, this lack of product modularity's operationalizability is likely to explain why there are very few empirical studies on product modularity (Fixson, 2007). Second, the gap between how product modularity is used in a conceptual way in some research areas, and how it is described in technical details in others, hinders potentially beneficial cooperation between these disciplines.…”