Management Levers for Product Platforms
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cameron17a.pdf
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288.97 KB
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Author(s)
Kwapisz, Jakub
Cameron, Bruce Gregory
Crawley, Edward F
Date Issued
July 2017
Journal
Engineering Management Journal
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Citation
Cameron, Bruce G., Edward F. Crawley, Jakub Kwapisz, and Alicia McNeill. “Management Levers for Product Platforms.” Engineering Management Journal 29, no. 3 (July 3, 2017): 128–139.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Platforming has become an important means of cost-sharing among industrial products. However, many firms face systemic downward pressure on commonality, with the result that many platforms realize less commonality than intended. Past research has hypothesized that divergence is the result of conflicting tensions between product customization/optimization and cost control. This article investigates the control and incentive levers available to platform managers to shape the behavior of the organization when divergence opportunities arise. Management levers are drawn from a series of 12 industrial case studies, stemming from investigations of the causes of divergences. These management levers are categorized as technical levers, financial levers, and organizational levers. This article illustrates each of the management levers with examples from the case studies.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Systems Architecture Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1080/10429247.2017.1323569
