Customer individual product development: Methodology for product architecture modification

In order to withstand the increasingly global competition companies try to differentiate themselves by fulfilling as many individual customer requirements as possible. Promising, in this regard, are so-called individualized products, where customers actively intervene in the development process by using web-based toolkits. However, avoiding functional or safety-relevant feedback between individualisable and non-individualisable product components under the condition to maximize the geometric solution space on part of the customers represent major challenges for the product development. In order to cope with that, a three phase methodology for product architecture modifications is presented in this paper. In conclusion an evaluation is presented which illustrates the usability and traceability of the methodical approach.