In an effort to increase customization for today’s highly competitive global markets, many companies are looking to product families to increase product variety and shorten product lead-times while reducing costs. The key to a successful product family is the common product platform around which the product family is derived. Building on our previous work in product family design, we introduce a product family penalty function (PFPF) in this paper to aid in the selection of common and scaling parameters for families of products derived from scalable product platforms. The implementation of the PFPF utilizes the powerful physical programming paradigm to formulate the problem in terms of physically meaningful parameters. To demonstrate the proposed approach, a family of electric motors is developed and compared against previous results. We find that the PFPF enables us to properly balance commonality and performance within the product family through the judicious selection of the common parameters that constitute the product platform and the scaling parameters used to instantiate the product family.
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June 2002
Technical Papers
Introduction of a Product Family Penalty Function Using Physical Programming
Achille Messac, Associate Professor,
Achille Messac, Associate Professor
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering Department, Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization Laboratory, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180
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Michael P. Martinez, Graduate Student,
Michael P. Martinez, Graduate Student
Northeastern University, Mechanical Engineering Department, Multidisciplinary Design Laboratory, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
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Timothy W. Simpson, Assistant Professor
Timothy W. Simpson, Assistant Professor
The Pennsylvania State University, Departments of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering and Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering, 329 Leonhard Building, University Park, PA 16802
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Achille Messac, Associate Professor
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering Department, Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization Laboratory, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180
Michael P. Martinez, Graduate Student
Northeastern University, Mechanical Engineering Department, Multidisciplinary Design Laboratory, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
Timothy W. Simpson, Assistant Professor
The Pennsylvania State University, Departments of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering and Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering, 329 Leonhard Building, University Park, PA 16802
Contributed by the Design Automation Committee for publication in the JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL DESIGN. Manuscript received Aug. 2000. Associate Editor: J. E. Renaud.
J. Mech. Des. Jun 2002, 124(2): 164-172 (9 pages)
Published Online: May 16, 2002
Article history
Received:
August 1, 2000
Online:
May 16, 2002
Citation
Messac, A., Martinez, M. P., and Simpson, T. W. (May 16, 2002). "Introduction of a Product Family Penalty Function Using Physical Programming ." ASME. J. Mech. Des. June 2002; 124(2): 164–172. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.1467602
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