The Method of Module Partition for Product Family Structure with Applications

A product family structure for mass customization is so complicated due to the diverse needs of customers. Module partition of product family structure is the principal problem for product family structure programming. This paper presents a method of module partition for product family structure based on the relativities of components. Firstly, the paper identifies the relativity from the view of customer needs, functional relativity and structural relativity. And the relativity matrices can be constructed by using a fuzzy clustering transitive closure algorithm. Then, using entropy, a best programming scheme can be selected by the evaluation of assemble and maintain. Finally, a case study along with detailed analysis is provided to illustrate the method of module partition