Conceptual Model for Developing Platform-Centric Production Architectures

Abstract

Research into product architectures and product platforms has increased extensively the last decade to cope with challenges of increasing product variance. However, increasing demand for speed and cost-effectiveness motivates a more holistic and integrated approach to new product introductions which do not only consider product design. Thus, needs exist for extending the scope of architecture and platform development to cover production aspects and thereby improving the robust process design capability of mass customization. Although attention to production architectures and production platforms has increased lately, not much has been published within this research area. Furthermore, empirical observations show that current vocabulary and detail level of constructs, models and methods for developing production platforms are not sufficient for proper industrial application—they need to be put into context. With origin in software architecture research, this paper provides a conceptual model that sets the context of creating production platform architectures.