A modularized generic product model in support of product family modeling in One-of-a-Kind Production

In One-of-a-Kind Production (OKP), a large number of customised product designs and CAD models are produced in order to satisfy a wide variety of customer requirements (CRs). This situation inevitably results in data redundancy when representing product families. Aiming to solve this issue, in this paper, a structured product model, the modularized generic product model (MGPM), is proposed to reduce data redundancy in OKP product family modeling. A function mapping method is proposed to assign functions/sub-functions to their corresponding items in the MGPM which is capable of supporting the conceptual design stage in New Product Development (NPD). Besides, functions allocated to CAD models form the indexes for these models, which improve the efficiency of case retrieval. Finally, to demonstrate the proposed product modeling approach, a case study is carried out on fruit chute products.