ISBN 9783843942492

978-3-8439-4249-2, Reihe Produktentwicklung

Timo Richter
A methodical framework supporting product architecture design in conceptualization

284 Seiten, Dissertation Technische Universität Braunschweig (2019), Softcover, A5

Zusammenfassung / Abstract

Product architecture represents the structure of products or product families from different perspectives. By an explicit consideration of product architecture during the design process, the achievement of various design goals can be supported. For this, methodical approaches for product architecture design exist that focus, for instance, on modularization, platform development, or function integration. However, for designers and researchers, the variety of existing approaches causes the challenge to select and apply those approaches most suitable for specific situations in design.

The aim of this thesis is to gain an overarching understanding of approaches for product architecture design. Therefore, existing approaches are analyzed regarding their contributions to different fields of design research, for instance, their proposed product models to represent product architecture and their design principles to improve the product architecture. In this way, the basis for a framework is elaborated that includes and expediently classifies the relevant knowledge from a variety of established approaches. To allow designers to access this knowledge, supports are developed that guide designers through the main activities regarding the consideration of product architecture: first, identifying relevant design goals related to product architecture; second, integrating product architecture design into design processes; and third, determining product architectures according to the defined design goals by the use of principles. The application of the framework is demonstrated by case studies aiming at the conceptualization of product families and improving existing products by considering alternative product architectures.