Many companies are using product families and platform-based product development to
reduce development costs and lead-time while increasing product variety and
customization. Multiobjective optimization is experiencing new found use in the
field of product family design to facilitate product platform design and help
resolve the inherent tradeoff between commonality and distinctiveness that exists
within a product family. After discussing the uses of multiobjective optimization in
product family design and the limitations of current approaches, we introduce a
genetic algorithm-based approach for product family design that has been developed
to overcome these challenges. The proposed genetic algorithm (GA) modifications
enable it to simultaneously design the product platform and its corresponding family
of products while considering varying levels of platform commonality within the
product family. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through
the design of a family of General Aviation Aircraft and comparison against previous
results. The impact of seeding the proposed GA with two product families, one with
all products common and one with all products unique, is studied and shown to yield
a richer Pareto set in fewer generations.
1.
Meyer, M.H.
and
Lehnerd, A.P.
(1997). The Power of Product Platforms: Building Value and
Cost Leadership,
New York: Free Press
.
2.
2.
McGrath, M.E.
(1995). Product Strategy for High-Technology Companies,
New York: Irwin Professional Publishing
.
3.
3.
Robertson, D.
and
Ulrich, K.
(1998).
Planning Product Platforms
, Sloan Management Review, 39(4):
19–31
.
4.
4.
Pine, B.J. II
(1993).
Mass Customizing Products and Services
, Planning Review, 22(4):
6(8)-6(8)
.
5.
5.
Simpson, T.W.
,
Nanda, J.
,
Halbe, S.
,
Umapathy, K.
and
Hodge, B.
(2003).
Development of a Framework for Webbased Product Platform Customization
, ASME Journal of Computing and Information Science in
Engineering, 3(2):
119–129
.
6.
6.
Tseng, M.M.
and
Jiao, J.
(1998).
Design for Mass Customization By Developing Product Family Architecture
, ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences – Design
Theory and Methodology, Atlanta, GA, ASME, Paper No. DETC98/DTM-5717.
7.
7.
Tseng, M.M.
,
Jiao, J.
and
Merchant, M. E.
(1996).
Design for Mass Customization
, CIRP Annals, 45(1):
153–156
.
8.
8.
Jiao, J.
and
Tseng, M.M.
(2000).
Understanding Product Family for Mass Customization by Developing
Commonality Indices
, Journal of Engineering Design, 11(3):
225–243
.
9.
9. Jiao, J. (1998). Design for Mass Customization by Developing Product
Family Architecture, Ph.D. Dissertation, Industrial Engineering and Engineering
Management, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
10.
10.
Du, X.
,
Jiao, J.
and
Tseng, M.M.
(2001).
Architecture of Product Family: Fundamentals and Methodology
, Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications,
9(4):
309–325
.
11.
11.
Nelson, S. A. II
,
Parkinson, M.B.
and
Papalambros, P.Y.
(2001).
Multicriteria Optimization in Product Platform Design
, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design,
123(2):
199–204
.
12.
12.
Fellini, R.
,
Papalambros, P.
and
Weber, T.
(2000).
Application of Product Platform Design Process to Automotive Powertrains
, 8th AIAA/NASA/USAF/ISSMO Symposium on Multidisciplinary Analysis
and Optimization, Long Beach, CA, AIAA, AIAA-2000-4849.
13.
13.
Fujita, K.
,
Akagi, S.
,
Yoneda, T.
and
Ishikawa, M.
(1998).
Simultaneous Optimization of Product Family Sharing System Structure and Configuration
, ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences – Design
for Manufacturing, Atlanta, GA, ASME, Paper No. DETC98/DFM-5722.
14.
14.
Fellini, R.
,
Kokkolaras, M.
,
Papalambros, P.
and
Perez-Duarte, A.
(2002).
Platform Selection Under Performance Loss Constraints in Optimal Design of
Product Families
, In:
Fadel, G.
(ed.), ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences –
Design Automation Conference, Montreal, Quebec, Canada,
ASME, Paper No. DETC2002/DAC-34099.
15.
15.
Fellini, R.
,
Kokkolaras, M.
,
Michelena, N.
,
Papalambros, P.
,
Saitou, K.
,
Perez-Duarte, A.
and
Fenyes, P.A.
(2002).
A Sensitivity-Based Commonality Strategy for Family Products of Mild
Variation, with Application to Automotive Body Structures
, 9th AIAA/ISSMO Symposium on Multidisciplinary Analysis and
Optimization, Atlanta, GA, AIAA, AIAA-2002-5610.
16.
16.
Allada, V.
and
Rai, R.
(2002).
Module-based Multiple Product Design
, IIE Annual Conference 2002, Orlando, FL, IIE.
17.
17.
Allada, V.
and
Jiang, L.
(2002).
New Modules Launch Planning for Evolving Modular Product Families
, ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences – Design
for Manufacturing Conference, Montreal, Quebec, Canada,
ASME, Paper No. DETC2002/DFM-34190.
18.
18.
Hernandez, G.
,
Allen, J.K.
and
Mistree, F.
(2002).
Design of Hierarchic Platforms for Customizable Products
, In:
Fadel, G.
(ed.), ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences –
Design Automation Conference, Montreal, Quebec, Canada,
ASME, Paper No. DETC2002/DAC-34095.
19.
19.
Messac, A.
,
Martinez, M.P.
and
Simpson, T.W.
(2000).
Effective Product Family Design Using Physical Programming and the Product
Platform Concept Exploration Method
, In:
Renaud, J.E.
(ed.), ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences –
Design Automation Conference, Baltimore, MD, ASME,
Paper No. DETC2000/DAC-14252.
20.
20.
Messac, A.
,
Martinez, M.P.
and
Simpson, T.W.
(2002).
Effective Product Family Design Using Physical Programming
, Engineering Optimization, 34(3):
245–261
.
21.
21.
Fujita, K.
and
Yoshida, H.
(2001).
Product Variety Optimization: Simultaneous Optimization of Module
Combination and Module Attributes
, In:
Diaz, A.
(ed.), ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences –
Design Automation Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, ASME,
Paper No. DETC2001/DAC-21058.
22.
22.
Fujita, K.
,
Sakaguchi, H.
and
Akagi, S.
(1999).
Product Variety Deployment and Its Optimization Under Modular Architecture
and Module Commonalization
, ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences – Design
for Manufacturing, Las Vegas, NV, ASME, Paper No. DETC99/DFM-8923.
23.
23.
Blackenfelt, M.
(2000).
Profit Maximisation while Considering Uncertainty by Balancing Commonality
and Variety Using Robust Design – The Redesign of a Family of Lift Tables
, ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences – Design
for Manufacturing, Baltimore, MD, ASME, Paper No. DETC2000/DFM-14013.
24.
24.
Jiang, L.
and
Allada, V.
(2001).
Design for Robustness of Modular Product Families for Current and Future Markets
, ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences – Design
for Manufacturing Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, ASME,
Paper No. DETC2001/DFM-21177.
25.
25.
Gonzalez-Zugasti, J.P.
,
Otto, K.N.
and
Baker, J.D.
1998.
A Method for Architecting Product Platforms with an Application to
Interplanetary Mission Design
, Advances in Design Automation, Atlanta, GA,
ASME, Paper No. DETC98/DAC-5608.
26.
26.
Gonzalez-Zugasti, J.P.
,
Otto, K.N.
and
Baker, J.D.
(2000).
A Method for Architecting Product Platforms
, Research in Engineering Design, 12(2):
61–72
.
27.
27.
Gonzalez-Zugasti, J.P.
and
Otto, K.N.
(2000).
Modular Platform-Based Product Family Design
, In:
Renaud, J. E.
(ed.), ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences –
Design Automation Conference, Baltimore, MD, ASME,
Paper No. DETC-2000/DAC-14238.
28.
28.
Gonzalez-Zugasti, J.P.
,
Otto, K.N.
and
Baker, J.D.
(2001).
Assessing Value for Platformed Product Family Design
, Research in Engineering Design, 13(1):
30–41
.
29.
29.
Simpson, T.W.
,
Maier, J.R.A.
and
Mistree, F.
(2001).
Product Platform Design: Method and Application
, Research in Engineering Design, 13(1):
2–22
.
30.
30.
Hernandez, G.
,
Simpson, T.W.
,
Allen, J.K.
,
Bascaran, E.
,
Avila, L.F.
and
Salinas, F.
(2001).
Robust Design of Families of Products with Production Modeling and Evaluation
, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design,
123(2):
183–190
.
31.
31.
Li, H.
and
Azarm, S.
(2002).
An Approach for Product Line Design Selection Under Uncertainty and Competition
, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design,
124(3):
385–392
.
32.
32.
Messac, A.
,
Martinez, M.P.
and
Simpson, T.W.
(2002).
A Penalty Function for Product Family Design Using Physical Programming
, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design,
124(2):
164–172
.
33.
33.
Nayak, R.U.
,
Chen, W.
and
Simpson, T.W.
(2002).
A Variation-Based Method for Product Family Design
, Engineering Optimization, 34(1):
65–81
.
34.
34. Blackenfelt, M. (2001). Managing Complexity by Product Modularisation,
Doctoral Thesis, Department of Machine Design, Stockholm, Sweden: Royal Institute of Technology.
35.
35.
D’Souza, B.
and
Simpson, T.W.
(2003).
A Genetic Algorithm Based Method for Product Family Design Optimization
, Engineering Optimization, 35(1):
1–18
.
36.
36.
Simpson, T.W.
,
Seepersad, C.C.
and
Mistree, F.
(2001).
Balancing Commonality and Performance within the Concurrent Design of
Multiple Products in a Product Family
, Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications,
9(3):
177–190
.
37.
37.
Goldberg, D.E.
(1989). Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization, and
Machine Learning,
New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.
38.
38.
Srinivas, N.
and
Deb, K.
(1995).
Multiobjective Function Optimization Using Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithms
, Evolutionary Computation Journal, 2(3):
221–248
.
39.
39.
Srinivas, N.
and
Deb, K.
(1995).
Comparative Study of Vector Evaluated GA and NSGA Applied to Multiobjective Optimization
, In:
Roy, P.K.
and
Mehta, S.D.
(eds), Proceedings of the Symposium on Genetic Algorithms,
Dehradun, India, pp.
83–90
.
40.
40.
Weile, D.S.
,
Michielssen, E.
and
Goldberg, D.E.
(1996).
Genetic Algorithm Design of Pareto-Optimal Broadband Microwave Absorbers
, IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility,
38(3):
525–528
.
41.
41.
Deb, K.
,
Agrawal, S.
,
Pratap, A.
and
Meyarivan, T.
(2000).
A Fast Elitist Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm for Multi-objective
Optimization: NSGA-II
, In: Proceedings of the Parallel Problem Solving from Nature VI
Conference, Paris, France, pp.
849–858
.
42.
42.
Dasgupta, D.
and
McGregor, D.R.
(1994).
A More Biologically Motivated Genetic Algorithm: The Model and Some Results
, Cybernetics and Systems: An International Journal,
25(3):
447–469
.
43.
43.
Kota, S.
,
Sethuraman, K.
and
Miller, R.
(2000).
A Metric for Evaluating Design Commonality in Product Families
, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design,
122(4):
403–410
.
44.
44.
Siddique, Z.
,
Rosen, D.W.
and
Wang, N.
(1998).
On the Applicability of Product Variety Design Concepts to Automotive
Platform Commonality
, Design Theory and Methodology –
DTM’98, Atlanta, GA, ASME, Paper No. DETC98/DTM-5661.
45.
45.
Simpson, T.W.
,
Chen, W.
,
Allen, J.K.
and
Mistree, F.
(1996).
Conceptual Design of a Family of Products through the Use of the Robust
Concept Exploration Method
, 6th AIAA/USAF/NASA/ISSMO Symposium on Multidisciplinary Analysis
and Optimization, Bellevue, WA, AIAA, 2, pp.
1535–1545
.
46.
46.
NASA
. (1978). GASP – General Aviation Synthesis
Program, NASA CR-152303, Contract NAS 2-9352, NASA Ames Research
Center, Moffett Field, CA.
47.
47.
Mistree, F.
,
Hughes, O.F.
and
Bras, B.A.
(1993). The Compromise Decision Support Problem and the
Adaptive Linear Programming Algorithm, In:
Kamat, M.P.
(ed.), Structural Optimization: Status and Promise,
Washington, D.C.: AIAA
, pp. 247–289.
48.
48. D’Souza, B. (2002). A Genetic Algorithm-based Approach for
Product Platform Design, M.S. Thesis, Department of Industrial &
Manufacturing Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
