Advances in Product Family and Product Platform Design: Methods & Applications highlights recent advances that have been made to support product family and product platform design along with successful applications in industry. This book provides not only motivation for product family and product platform design (i.e., address questions about “why and when should we platform”) but also methods and tools to support the design and development of families of products based on shared platforms (i.e. address the “how” and “what” questions about platforming). It begins with a general overview of product family design to introduce the general reader to the topic and then progress to more advanced topics and design theory to help designers, engineers, and project managers plan, architect, and implement platform-based product development strategies for their company. Finally, successful industry applications provide readers and practitioners with case studies and “talking points” to become platform advocates and leaders within their organization.

This book discusses how product platform and product family design can be used successfully to increase variety within a product line, shorten manufacturing lead times, and reduce overall costs within a product line. The material serves as a reference and a hands-on guide for practitioners involved in the design, planning and production of products. Real-life case studies that explain the benefits of platform based product development are included.

Annotation. This is volume I of the proceedings of the Second International Conference on Natural Computation, ICNC 2006. After a demanding review process 168 carefully revised full papers and 86 revised short papers were selected from 1915 submissions for presentation in two volumes. This first volume includes 130 papers related to artificial neural networks, natural neural systems and cognitive science, neural network applications, as well as evolutionary computation: theory and algorithms.

This book examines seven key combinatorial engineering frameworks (composite schemes consisting of algorithms and/or interactive procedures) for hierarchical modular (composite) systems. These frameworks are based on combinatorial optimization problems (e.g., knapsack problem, multiple choice problem, assignment problem, morphological clique problem), with the author’s version of morphological design approach – Hierarchical Morphological Multicritieria Design (HMMD) – providing a conceptual lens with which to elucidate the examples discussed. This approach is based on ordinal estimates of design alternatives for systems parts/components, however, the book also puts forward an original version of HMMD that is based on new interval multiset estimates for the design alternatives with special attention paid to the aggregation of modular solutions (system versions). The second part of ‘Modular System Design and Evaluation’ provides ten information technology case studies that enriches understanding of the design of system design, detection of system bottlenecks and system improvement, amongst others. The book is intended for researchers and scientists, students, and practitioners in many domains of information technology and engineering. The book is also designed to be used as a text for courses in system design, systems engineering and life cycle engineering at the level of undergraduate level, graduate/PhD levels, and for continuing education. The material and methods contained in this book were used over four years in Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University) in the author’s faculty course “System Design”.

This book introduces state-of-the-art models and methods based on the matrix in the field of product design and change management. It develops several types of matrix models for a broad range of applications, with the goal of efficiently finding product design solutions and proactively analyzing design change propagation. The book offers readers an extensive introduction to design automation, highlighting fundamental and innovative concepts, as well as cutting-edge technologies. Further, it familiarizes them with the latest advances in design change propagation and prediction. Lastly, the book puts forward design change-oriented matrix models and includes a proactive analysis of change propagation. The book offers a valuable resource for graduate students, researchers and engineers in the fields of product design and methodology, design automation and related areas.

Smart Product-Service Systems draws on innovative practice and academic research to demonstrate the unique benefits of Smart PSS and help facilitate its effective implementation. This comprehensive guide explains how Smart PSS reshapes product-service design in several unique aspects, including a closed-loop product design and redesign manner, value co-creation with integrated human-machine intelligence, and solution design context-awareness. Readers in industry as well as academia will find this to be an invaluable guide to the current body of technical knowledge on Smart Product-Service Systems (Smart PSS), future research trajectories, and experiences of implementation. Rapid development of information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, and digital technologies have driven today's industries towards the so-called digital servitization era. As a result, a promising IT-driven business paradigm, known as Smart Product-Service Systems (Smart PSS) has emerged, where a large amount of low cost, high performance smart, connected products are leveraged, together with their generated on-demand services, as a single solution bundle to meet individual customer needs. - Explains what factors a company needs to consider in their transition towards digital servitization and its advantages - Describes how this field relates to the sustainability movement, and how Smart PSS can be implemented in a sustainable way - Includes detailed case studies from different industries, including DELTA Electronics Inc. Singapore (smart commercialization), COMAC aviation industry (smart manufacturing servitization), and Van High Tech (smart building services)

The Concurrent Engineering (CE) approach was developed in the 1980s, based on the concept that different phases of a product life cycle should be conducted concurrently and initiated as early as possible within the Product Creation Process (PCP). CE concepts have matured and become the foundation of many new ideas, methodologies, initiatives, approaches and tools. This book contains the proceedings from the 23rd ISPE Inc. International Conference on Transdisciplinary (formerly: Concurrent) Engineering, held in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil, in October 2016. The conference, entitled 'Transdisciplinary Engineering: Crossing Boundaries', provides an important forum for international scientific exchange on Concurrent Engineering and collaborative enterprises, and attracts the participation of researchers, industry experts and students, as well as government representatives. The 108 peer reviewed papers and keynote speech included here, range from theoretical and conceptual to strongly pragmatic works, which are organized into 17 sections including: Concurrent Engineering and knowledge exchange; engineering for sustainability; multidisciplinary project management; collaborative design and engineering; optimization of engineering operations and data analytics; and multidisciplinary design optimization, among others. The book gives an overview of the latest research, advancements and applications in the field and will be of interest to researchers, design practitioners and educators.