Core components-oriented modularisation methodology for complex products

ABSTRACTABSTRACTAs a cost-saving and environmental-friendly product strategy, modular design is an effective approach to shorten lead-time and reduce cost for development of products. However, the modular design of products with complex structure might be plagued by the difficulty of product structure modeling and unreasonable structural modular schemes. In this study, a core components-oriented modularisation method is presented to solve the problem of module division of complex products. The structural model of complex products is reasonably simplified by screening core components, which further reduces the modeling difficulty and improves the solution efficiency of module division scheme. Firstly, a hybrid structure decomposition method is proposed to obtain all components of complex products according to the different structure characteristics of each subsystem of complex products. Secondly, the core components of complex products are screened by calculating the whole life cycle cost (WLCC) of each component, and the design structure matrix (DSM) model of complex products is established according to the relationship between the core components. Finally, the module division scheme of complex products is obtained via hierarchical clustering and modularity evaluation. Effectiveness and robustness of the method are demonstrated through comparison experiments for the modular design of a hydraulic excavator case.KEYWORDS: Complex product modularisationcore component-orienteddesign structure matrixhierarchical clustering Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions: [Grant Number PAPD].