Large Scale Product Modularity

Decreasing time and costs is a major objective in
many businesses today. Including modularity in the
early design phases can effectively decrease time
spent on and costs associated with a project. The
task of identifying modules within a product early in
the design process (when decisions are less
expensive) is made less daunting by using the
techniques of functional modeling and module
heuristics. This work discusses the results of the
efforts to verify the module heuristics on large
products. Observations on needed modifications to the
functional modeling technique and original module
heuristics are reported along with an investigation
of using potential risk statements to formulate
modules. It is the finding of this work that the
original module heuristics do still apply to large
products. These module heuristics can be combined
with themselves or other heuristics to create super
modules. This increases the heuristics efficiency
and usefulness in regards to large products.

Autorentext

BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from MissouriUniversity of Science and Technology.

Klappentext

Decreasing time and costs is a major objective inmany businesses today. Including modularity in theearly design phases can effectively decrease timespent on and costs associated with a project. Thetask of identifying modules within a product early inthe design process (when decisions are lessexpensive) is made less daunting by using thetechniques of functional modeling and moduleheuristics. This work discusses the results of theefforts to verify the module heuristics on largeproducts. Observations on needed modifications to thefunctional modeling technique and original moduleheuristics are reported along with an investigationof using potential risk statements to formulatemodules. It is the finding of this work that theoriginal module heuristics do still apply to largeproducts. These module heuristics can be combinedwith themselves or other heuristics to create 'super'modules. This increases the heuristics' efficiencyand usefulness in regards to large products.