Architecture design method for configure-to-order products toward effective order receiving and placing via using multi domain matrix analysis

Abstract

Configure-to-order (CTO) production is introduced for satisfying various individual customer requirements closely while saving various engineering efforts. In CTO, manufacturing companies modularize their products and customize them according to individual customer needs. A variety of modules and options must be provided for meeting various customer needs accurately. However, the more choices of modules and options are provided, the more customers and manufacturers have difficulties in arranging products which meet customer needs with them. In order that a manufacturer arranges optimal products more effectively for customers by means of CTO production paradigm, product architecture and order receiving procedure must be sophisticatedly designed with considering co-occurrence relations originated from customer needs. This paper proposes a novel method for designing product architecture and receiving order procedure with integrating customer needs, physical functions and entity structure through three design structure matrixes (DSMs) and two domain mapping matrixes (DMMs). The evaluation function that optimizes the degree of coherence between DSMs is formulated with a series of DSMs and DMMs. A simulated annealing based method is introduced to explore optimal modular architectures. A case study of an industrial three-axis linear-type robot is demonstrated. The design result by the proposed method is compared with ones that consider only physical functions and entity structure. Its result shows the validity and promises of the proposed method.