R&D in Product and Process Innovation — System Design of Multidisciplinary Products by Applying Mass Customization Approaches

In this study, a method is proposed to support the process of translating customer requirements into system requirements and transforming system-level specifications into subsystems and components at the early design phase of multidisciplinary products. System architecting (SA) is effectively applied to perform the functional decomposition of the product and then map the product functions into a physical structure such as modules and components. From SA, product architecture with interfaces is developed from which the modular product platforms are identified. In this study, a system architecture approach is applied in a computational tool (SA-CAD) to develop design data about the multidisciplinary product, i.e., autonomous vacuum cleaning robot. The result shows that the designer identifies the features and attributes of the product. The data stored in the computational tool can be used to establish consistency of system descriptions at different levels of hierarchy. The results demonstrate that the system designer gains the capability to redesign and develop multiple system architectures to facilitate product platform development and product family modeling for next-generation products. With this capability, companies can bring agility into their design, offer customized solutions to customers, and develop their production lines based on common parts and variable parts. Furthermore, this approach supports the task of system decomposition, complexity management, interface development, and the identification of system properties at multiple levels in a multidisciplinary product.