Extended CAD-models — State of practice within three companies

Product platforms and product family design have been recognized as successful methods to enable mass-customization strategies. However, companies working with products where pre-defined product variants are not feasible require a more generic platform with re-usable components as well as engineering resources. Extended CAD-models is an approach where CAD-models are utilized as carriers of information to support re-usability of both geometric content and engineering activities, decreasing product development lead-time and enabling the definition of a product family within Engineer-To-Order business contexts. The following paper presents the approach in more detail and the results of a multi-case study where three Swedish industrial companies were interviewed. Results show that all companies store information within the CAD-models to support re-usability. Several challenges were expressed such as managing responsibilities and modeling flexible CAD-models. Future trends involve the concept, but to which extent is not clear.