Product Platform Lexicon

Product
"a product is a functional designed object that is made to be sold and/or used as a unit."
[Dixon, J. R. and Poli, C., 1999, Engineering Design & Design for Manufacturing: A Structured Approach, Field Stone Publishers, Conway, MA, USA.]


Product Realization
"is the set of cognitive and physical processes by which new and modified products are conceived, designed, produced, brought to market, serviced, and disposed of."
[Dixon, J. R. and Poli, C., 1999, Engineering Design & Design for Manufacturing: A Structured Approach, Field Stone Publishers, Conway, MA, USA.]

Product Platform
"a set of common components, modules, or parts from which a stream of derivative products can be efficiently developed and launched"
[Meyer, M. H. and Lehnerd, A. P., 1997, The Power of Product Platforms: Building Value and Cost Leadership, Simon and Schuster Inc., New York, NY, USA.]

"the collection of assets [i.e., components, processes, knowledge, people and relationships] that are shared by a set of products"
[Robertson, D. and Ulrich, K. T., 1998, "Planning Product Platforms", Sloan Management Review, 39(4), pp. 19-31.]

Product Family
"a set of individual products that share common technology and address a related set of market application"
[Meyer, M. H. and Lehnerd, A. P., 1997, The Power of Product Platforms: Building Value and Cost Leadership, Simon and Schuster Inc., New York, NY, USA.]

Design Object/Artifact
"a design object or artifact is any material object that has been or is to be manufactured from information prepared for that purpose"
[Dixon, J. R. and Poli, C., 1999, Engineering Design & Design for Manufacturing: A Structured Approach, Field Stone Publishers, Conway, MA, USA.]

Scale-Based Product Family
Products are made by scaling or stretching the platform in one or more dimensions to satisfy a variety of market niches.

Module-Based Product Family
Products are made from a common platform by combining distinct modules with common interfaces

Commonality
Degree of Commonality Index [DCI]
Commonality of a product family calculated by this method range from 1 to a real number.
[Collier, D.A., 1981, “The Measurement and Operating Benefits of Component Part Commonality? Decision Sciences, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp85-96.]

Total Constant Commonality Index [TCCI]
Commonality of a product family calculated by this method range from from 0 to 1.
[Wacker, J.G. and Trelevan, M., 1986, “Component Part Standardization: An Analysis of Commonality Sources and Indices? Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 219-244.]

Product Line Commonality Index [PCI]
Commonality of a product family calculated by this method range from from 0 to 100.
[Kota, S., Sethuraman, K. and Miller, R., 2000, “A Metric for Evaluating Design Commonality in Product Families? ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, Vol. 122, No. 4, pp. 403-410.]

Percent Commonality [%C]
Commonality of a product family calculated by this method range from from 0 to 100.
[Siddique, Z., Rosen, D.W. and Wang, N., 1998, September 13-16, ?On the Applicability of Product Variety Design Concepts to Automotive Platform Commonality? Design Theory and Methodology ?DTM?8, Atlanta, GA, ASME, Paper No. DETC98/DTM-5661.]

Commonality Index [CI]
Commonality of a product family calculated by this method range from from 0 to 1.
[Martin, M. and Ishii, K., 1996, August 18-22, “Design for Variety: A Methodology for Understanding the Costs of Product Proliferation? Design Theory and Methodology ?DTM?6 (Wood, K., ed.), Irvine, CA, ASME, Paper No. 96-DETC/DTM-1610.]
[Martin, M. V. and Ishii; K., 1997, September 14-17, “Design for Variety: Development of Complexity Indices and Design Charts? Advances in Design Automation (Dutta, D., ed.), Sacramento, CA, ASME, Paper No. DETC97/DFM-4359.]

Component Part Commonality [CI(C)]
Commonality of a product family calculated by this method range from from 0 to real number.
[Jiao, J. and Tseng, M. M., 2000, “Understanding Product Family for Mass Customization by Developing Commonality Indices? Journal of Engineering Design, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp.225-243.]

Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
"is a method for relating directly the specific needs and desires of customers to the features and engineering characteristics of a product being designed, evaluated or re-designed."
[Hauser, D. R. and Clausing, D., "The house of quality." Harvard Business Review, May-June, 1988]

Design for Manufacturability (DFM)
Methods and tools to support the decision making process of choosing the best combination of materials and manufacturing methods.
(Vliet and Luttervelt, 1999)

Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA)
Design for Manufacture and Assembly, DFMA, allows you to systematically analyze your product designs with the goal of reducing manufacture and assembly costs, improving quality and speeding time to market. http://www.dfma.com/

Design Structure Matrix (DSM)
Design structure matrix (DSM) is a binary square matrix that displays the relationships between components of a system.

    Component-based
    Team-based
    Activity-based
    Parameter-based

Design for Assembly (DFA)
is a method for evaluating qualitatively and quantitatively the time and hence cost of handling and inserting parts in a product or machine.
[Boothroyd, G. and Dewhurst, P., 1987, Product Design for Assembly, Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc.,Wakefoeld, RI.]