Product family development and implementation: Global product family design: Simultaneous optimal design of module commonalization and supply chain configuration

Abstract

Global product family design is the problem in which product variants and supply chain configuration are simultaneously designed. It has become a significant concern of manufacturing industries under globalization. In this chapter, simultaneous design of module commonalization and supply chain configuration is formulated as a multi-objective mixed-integer programming problem under the criteria on quality, cost, and delivery. Then, an optimization algorithm for obtaining Pareto optimal solutions is configured by using a neighborhood cultivation genetic algorithm and simplex method, and a clustering technique of such Pareto solutions is introduced with a principal component analysis method for investigating the optimality and compromise in global product family design. Finally, some numerical case studies are demonstrated.