Multi-Produkt-Entwicklung - praxisorientierte Werkzeuge und praktische Erfarungen

These years many companies are radically changing the way product development is carried out. One major change relates to a shift from single product development to multi product development, meaning that not only one product is developed but product families. There are many drivers for this change but among the most important ones are reduced time-to-market, increased product development capacity, and increased sales due more customized products.

This change from single product development to multiple product development, e.g. by application of product platforms and modules is a major shift of paradigm in product development. One very important change is a division of product development into preparation and execution. Preparation means e.g. the development of a platform and the specification of interfaces, while execution means platform implementation and the development of individual products or product families.

In production the split between preparation and execution has been one of the main reasons for increased productivity and quality. In product development the same phenomena may occur. The challenges in multiple product development are of many types e.g. strategic (portfolio planning, risk handling, market, etc.), organizational (transition from platform design to project execution, determining modern procedures, knowledge sourcing etc.) and modeling (requirement specification for a platform, platform definition, evaluation of solutions etc).

This chapter is mainly focusing on the modeling challenge. We see the need for a whole new range of modeling tools to support multiproduct development. Compared to single product development the contents of all phases changes e.g. requirement definition, conceptualization, evaluation and documentation.

As examples explicit product family definition and documentation of interfaces are very critical in multiple product development and less critical in single product development. The research carried out in the Technical University of Denmark is based on the fundamental hypothesis that if the characteristics (German: Merkmale) that determine a product family and its relation to market and supply chain can be identified and modeled properly, the ability to handle multiple product development in a more successful way can be achieved.

In other words the design “degrees of freedom” for design of product families have to be made visible and explicit. The chapter presents two main results. First experiences from 12 multi product development projects in Danish industry are presented, along with a proposal for a language on multi product development.

The aim being to explain words like reference architecture, product architecture, product platform, and standard design. Secondly five tools, which support decision making in multi product development projects, are presented. These tools have successfully been applied in a number of Danish companies.

Finally, the chapter will report on the progress in the transition of the product development at Bang & Olufsen from single product development towards multi product development. Platform development at Bang & Olufsen is benchmarked with Philips Consumer Electronics.