Product platform life cycles: a multiple case study

Wortmann, Hans; Alblas, A.A.

doi:10.1504/ijtm.2009.024915

Cited by 20 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Less research has appeared on its cross-section. Wortmann and Alblas (2009) and Alblas and Wortmann (2010) developed the notion of platform lifecycle management, introducing the idea that a distinction should be made between design lifecycles, product lifecycles and platform lifecycle, and that each of these should be put under change control. In Alblas (2011) a platform stability efficiency metric was developed, which is defined as the total number of engineering changes to the total set of derivative products P D i divided by the multiplication of the number of platform changes P and the number of derivative products.…”

Section: Related Literature Research Motivation and Research Aimmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing design variety, process variety and engineering change: a case study of two capital good firms

Veldman

Alblas

2012

Res Eng Design

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Many capital good firms deliver products that are not strictly one-off, but instead share a certain degree of similarity with other deliveries. In the delivery of the product, they aim to balance stability and variety in their product design and processes. The issue of engineering change plays an important in how they manage to do so. Our aim is to gain more understanding into how capital good firms manage engineering change, design variety and process variety, and into the role of the product delivery strategies they thereby use. Product delivery strategies are defined as the type of engineering work that is done independent of an order and the specification freedom the customer has in the remaining part of the design. Based on the within-case and cross-case analysis of two capital good firms several mechanisms for managing engineering change, design variety and process variety are distilled. It was found that there exist different ways of (1) managing generic design information, (2) isolating large engineering changes, (3) managing process variety, (4) designing and executing engineering change processes. Together with different product delivery strategies these mechanisms can be placed within an archetypes framework of engineering change management. On one side of the spectrum capital good firms operate according to open product delivery strategies, have some practices in place to investigate design reuse potential, isolate discontinuous engineering changes into the first deliveries of the product, employ 'probe and learn' process management principles in order to allow evolving insights to be accurately executed and have informal engineering change processes. On the other side of the spectrum capital good firms operate according to a closed product delivery strategy, focus on prevention of engineering changes based on design standards, need no isolation mechanisms for discontinuous engineering changes, have formal process management practices in place and make use of closed and formal engineering change procedures. The framework should help managers to (1) analyze existing configurations of product delivery strategies, product and process designs and engineering change management and (2) reconfigure any of these elements according to a 'misfit' derived from the framework. Since this is one of the few in-depth empirical studies into engineering change management in the capital good sector, our work adds to the understanding on the various ways in which engineering change can be dealt with.

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Section: Related Literature Research Motivation and Research Aimmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing design variety, process variety and engineering change: a case study of two capital good firms

Veldman

Alblas

2012

Res Eng Design

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“…They include product platform strategies (Muffatto, 1999a(Muffatto, , 1999bKarandikar and Nidamarthi, 2007), product platform adoption (Krishnan and Gupta, 2001;Marion et al, 2007), product platform development in practice (Alizon et al, 2009;Halman et al, 2003;Lindquist et al, 2008;Muffatto and Roveda, 2000;Shooter et al, 2007), product platform competencies (Chai et al, 2012), product platform projects (Tatikonda, 1999), product platform life cycles (Wortmann and Alblas, 2009), product platform application in process intensive industries (Meyer and Dalal, 2002), and the exploration of platform planning in marketing (Thomas, 2012). In comparison, the number of available studies investigating each of these issues is relatively small.…”

Section: Miscellaneous Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As claimed by him, the results of his study suggest managerial actions that companies can take to improve product development process. Based on a number of in depth interviews with domain experts, Wortmann and Alblas (2009) discuss the life cycles of product platforms in various industries, such as aerospace, automotive, industrial machinery, and point out some requirements, for example, clear documentation, for the management of product platform life cycles. Targeting process intensive industries where non-assembled products, such as gases and steel, are produced, Meyer and Dalal (2002) deal with the measurement of product platform efficiency and demonstrate how derivative products can be developed based on product platforms.…”

Section: Miscellaneous Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This results in an increasing number of empirical studies. As shown in Table 4, prior to 2001, there are five empirical studies, whilst from 2001 onward, there are 16 empirical studies Alizon et al, 2009;Chai et al, 2012;Gunzenhauser and Bongulielmi, 2008;Halman et al, 2003;Karandikar and Nidamarthi, 2007;Levandowski et al, 2014;Lindquist et al, 2008;Madni, 2012;Mahmoud-Jouini and Lenfle, 2010;Meyer and Dalal, 2002;Pasche and Magnusson, 2011;Sanchez, 2004;Shooter et al, 2007;Skold and Karlsson, 2012;Wortmann and Alblas, 2009). These empirical studies are aimed at shedding light on the life cycles, implications, challenges, and requirements associated with product platform design, development, and implementation in practice.…”

Section: Trends In Research On Platformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A literature review on multitype platforming and framework for future research

Zhang

2015

International Journal of Production Economics

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“…• System design principles that increase adaptability to change, including platform-based techniques ("design for change") [6] [7] [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engineering Change Management Concepts for Systems Modeling

Bock¹,

Feeney²

2013

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A significant cost of manufactured systems arises in changing system specifications after they have been built and delivered to customers. This might be due to errors in the original specifications, feedback from customers, competition from other producers, or new ideas for product improvement. It involves revisiting decisions and tasks that were considered completed, including modifying engineering specifications produced by these activities. This paper reviews engineering change management to understand the demands it places on system models and modeling languages, in particular the Systems Modeling Language.

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Product platform life cycles: a multiple case study

Cited by 20 publications

References 22 publications

Managing design variety, process variety and engineering change: a case study of two capital good firms

Managing design variety, process variety and engineering change: a case study of two capital good firms

A literature review on multitype platforming and framework for future research

Engineering Change Management Concepts for Systems Modeling

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