Initial situation

The development of modular product structures has various advantages. Essentially, this makes it possible to reduce internal variety while maintaining external variety. Various product structure strategies can be pursued in the context of developing modular product structures. Examples of modular product structure strategies include the platform strategy, the modular kit strategy, and the common module strategy.

Figure 1: Modular product structure strategies

Each modular product structure strategy pursues different objectives. The common module strategy develops modules that can be used not only for one product family, but for several or even the entire product portfolio. For this reason, the modules are usually smaller or have a narrower range of functions, as this increases the chance of being able to use them as widely as possible. This contrasts with the platform strategy, which attempts to create a large module that is always the same in all product variants of a product family. As a result, this large module, the platform, is always required and leads to standardized manufacturing on the process side. In the middle of the spectrum is the modular kit strategy, which aims to enable product variety within a product family with as few components and modules as possible. This will also result in modules that can be used in neighboring product families.

The modular product structures thus differ in particular in terms of how modules are formed and subsequently reused. As a result, different effects arise for the respective company depending on the chosen product structure strategy.

Project objectives

The aim of the research project is to develop a simulation-based impact model that can be used to make statements about the possible effects depending on the chosen modular product structure strategy.

Approach

Previous research projects have determined the general impact of the development of modular product structures. To this end, a fundamental model was developed in the DFG project WiMo that provide information on the effects that the individual characteristics of modular product structures can have on economic targets. The impact model for modular product structures was expanded as part of the DFG projects WiMo2 and Wimo-Trans and validated in cooperation with industry partners. The impact model for modular product structures thus forms the basis for SimPro.

Figure 2: Impact model of modular product structures

Taking into account the different modular product structure strategies, the impact model of modular product structures is adjusted accordingly and the effects are determined based on the selected product structure strategy. Furthermore, the effects are supplemented by specific effects of the respective product structure strategy, supported by systematic literature research. For dynamic adjustments to the impact model of modular product structure strategies and to simulate the effects of different decision alternatives, the causal relationships between product structure strategy, primary effect, secondary effect, and impact on economic targets from the impact model are implemented into a new integrated simulation-based impact model using probability distributions. Unknown effects can thus be systematically simulated on the basis of the various probability distributions and generalized to different scenarios.

Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr.-Ing Dieter Krause

Co-Investigator: Luica Pöhlsen, M.Sc.