Optimal Configuration Design of Open Architecture Products Considering Product Adaptability and Diversity of Modules

Product diversity and market competition have led the demand for open architecture products. To meet the low cost and personalization requirements of customers, modules of the open architecture product usually consist of common modules and customized modules, as well as personalized modules and unknown add-on modules with open interfaces. In order to reasonably utilize existing modules according to user requirements, the product adaptability should be addressed in the configuration design of open architecture products. This research proposes an optimal design method of module configuration for open architecture products considering product adaptability and diversity of modules. In this research, new methods are developed for unified modeling of different modules for open architecture products, selection of candidate modules with different life cycle stages, evaluation of adaptability of candidate configurations, and optimization based on genetic algorithms. The effectiveness and feasibility of the method are verified by the design of friction stitch welding machine family with open architectures. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.