A method for defining the requirements of a product platform

Abstract

The economic success of a company depends on its ability to produce products that satisfy the needs of a wide variety of consumers. These products have to be produced in a cost-effective manner. One approach to this problem is the creation of product families based on a platform architecture. A platform architecture is the set of selection and configuration choices shared among multiple products. This thesis presents a method for designing product platforms that takes into consideration both the performance requirements as well as the cost of the product family. The method is used to identify possible subsystems of each product that could be made common to all products in the family and become part of the platform.