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In this paper we appraise the ways in which use of closed-system proprietary product architectures versus open-system modular product architectures is likely to influence the dynamics and trajectory of new product market formation. We compare the evolutions of new markets in China for gas-powered two-wheeled vehicles (G2WVs) based (initially) on closed-system proprietary architectures and for electric-powered two-wheeled vehicles (E2WVs) based on open-system modular architectures. We draw on this comparison to suggest ways in which the use of the two different kinds of architectures as the basis for new kinds of products may result in very different patterns and speeds of new market formation. We then suggest some key implications of the different dynamics of market formation associated with open-system modular architectures for both the competence-based strategic management (CBSM) of firms and for technology and economic development policies of governments.

Specifically, we suggest how the use of open-system modular product architectures as the basis for new products is likely to result in dynamics of new market formation that call for new approaches to the strategic management of innovation and product creation. We also suggest technology and economic development policies favoring use of open-system modular architectures may stimulate new market formation and related economic development by providing platforms for accelerating technology development and dissemination, facilitating the formation of an industrial base of assemblers and component suppliers, assisting new firms in building customer relationships, enabling more geographically diffused economic development within countries, and facilitating development of export markets. We also suggest directions for further research into the potential for open-system modular product architectures to enable bottom-of-the-pyramid innovation processes, frugal engineering in developing economies, and development of low-cost product variations more generally.

The aims of this article are to introduce a modularization framework and a method for the formation of modules.

A methodological framework is presented to guide designers and engineers in the formation and selection of suitable modules in developing customized products. Detailed explanations of the framework are presented theoretically. This framework interacts with different product development participants such as resources, customers' preferences, design architecture for planning, and scheduling a custom‐built product. A new method is proposed with a case example to facilitate the formation of modules.

This paper investigates the potential of the modularization framework, usable for prioritizing the components dependencies and creating required number of modules. It also explains the overall concept, usability and rules/methods for the module formation applied to product design, to allow a greater degree of freedom for the designer, and the opportunity to reduce development time and increase customer satisfaction. A method, based on the rules for modularity concept is proposed within the scope of this paper.

The framework and the method of modularization as illustrated in this article are based on a theoretical hypothesis. Both the approaches require implementing in a real industrial environment in order to generalize their effectiveness, applicability and consistency in the manufacturing arena.

Since product architecture is an important element in determining the value and flexibility of the product development process, the relationship pattern between the architecture and productivity is therefore worthy of careful investigation. The aims of modular framework and rules for modularity are to incorporate design variables and dependency structure with a view to enhancing product development lead time and will contribute to the exploitation of overall bottlenecks of manufacturing systems.

The implementation framework for modular product architecture seems unique as its potential value could be applied in the industrial environment for production flexibility and reducing bottlenecks. Along with the framework, the presented modularity rule or method will contribute to business architecture with a view to providing more reliable operation, easier maintenance and faster product development time.

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

To provide an overview of research published in the management accounting literature on methods for cost management in new product development, such as a target costing, life cycle costing, component commonality, and modular design.

The structured literature search covered papers about 15 different cost management methods published in 40 journals in the period 1990–2013.

The search yielded a sample of 113 different papers. Many contained information about more than one method, and this yielded 149 references to specific methods. The number of references varied strongly per cost management method and per journal. Target costing has received by far the most attention in the publications in our sample; modular design, component commonality, and life cycle costing were ranked second and joint third. Most references were published in Management Science; Management Accounting Research; and Accounting, Organizations and Society. The results were strongly influenced by Management Science and Decision Science, because cost management methods with an engineering background were published above average in these two journals (design for manufacturing, component commonality, modular design, and product platforms) while other topics were published below average in these two journals.

The scope of this review is accounting research. Future work could review the research on cost management methods in new product development published outside accounting.

The paper centers on methods for cost management, which complements reviews that focused on theoretical constructs of management accounting information and its use.

In an effort to better respond to heterogeneous customer needs, an increasing number of companies in different sectors deal with the combination of high variety and frequent product changes/modifications. This entails planning, designing, purchasing and manufacturing activities and exacerbates the alignment of Sales, Production Planning and Engineering goals. This paper aims to suggest a way of improving coordination between such functional areas in contexts characterised by high variety and frequent product changes. Based on the data from an action Research study, a method for taking the contrasting requests of Sales, Production Planning and Engineering into account simultaneously and to facilitate the coordination of their activities is developed. It leverages Modular Bills and product modularity to improve inter‐functional coordination. Initial indications are promising. However, given the specific nature of the studied case, further research is required to evaluate the generalizability of the findings.

The virtual design environment offers users an opportunity to interact with a virtual prototyping rather than physical models and to build a fixture configuration in a realistic way. But the virtual reality (VR) environment tends to be inaccurate because humans have difficulty in performing precise positioning tasks. Therefore, it is necessary to implement precise object manipulation methods for assembly and disassembly activities, so that users can perform modular fixture configuration design efficiently in VE. The purpose of this paper is to develop a VR‐based modular fixture assembly design system, which supports the design and assembly of modular fixture configuration in a virtual environment.

Geometric constraint‐based method is utilized to represent and treat the assembly relationship between modular fixture elements. The paper presents a hybrid method of rule‐based reasoning and fuzzy comprehensive judgment to capture the user's operation intent and recognize geometric constraint. Through degrees of freedom based analysis, a mathematical matrix is presented for representing and reducing allowable motion of fixture elements, and a constraint‐based motion navigation approach is proposed to ensure that the manipulation of a fixture component not violate that the existing constraints.

The paper finds that the proposed techniques are applicable to the convenient manipulation and accurate positioning of fixture elements in a virtual environment.

Component manipulation plays a key role in interactive virtual assembly design. The proposed approach in this paper enables interactive assembly design of modular fixture in virtual environment.

This paper presents a geometric constraint‐based approach that realizes automatic assembly relationship recognition, constraint solving and motion navigation for interactive modular fixture assembly design in a virtual environment.

This paper describes the development and implementation of a modular school building design prototype to support “build back better” after the disaster. The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between the two standard practices of post-disaster reconstruction: the quickly temporary construction and the permanent solution with longer time to complete.

The modular school design prototype was developed based on three design criteria established to achieve a relatively quick construction with good quality as a post-disaster permanent solution. The prototype was implemented in Kerandangan Village, Lombok and evaluated to review its compliance with the design criteria.

Three design strategies were proposed to respond to the main design criteria: the use of modular units and components, the material durability and availability, and the “plug-and-play” configuration system. Through these strategies, the prototype demonstrated the ability to perform as a permanent solution to be implemented in a short time. The prototype evaluation suggests some possible improvement to ensure a more efficient process and further replicability.

The development of the modular design bridges the gap between temporary and permanent approach for post-disaster school reconstruction. The highlighted criteria and the proposed design strategies contribute to the “build back better” attempt by providing better learning experiences for children through a replicable modular design that could be flexibly adapted to various local contexts.

Modularization and level of repair analysis for fleet system influences every phase of the system life cycle. Modular based fleet system design raises new issues since the maintenance/repair services introduces further requirements than traditional product engineering. The decision of modular system and level of repair plays an important role to reduce the Life Cycle Costs (LCC) of fleet maintenance system. The concept of modularity has been extended to services in maintenance for the varieties of fleet systems such as wind turbines, gas turbines, advance machine tools and aircrafts etc. System modularity allows the designers to use of different design alternatives and ease of fault diagnosis, repair and services. The purpose of this paper to develop a joint optimization approach for optimal selection of modular design and level of repair decisions. Usually these two decisions are taken separately.

In the proposed joint approach, level of repair analysis is used to obtain the optimal modular design decisions with reduced life cycle cost. In the existing research, the effect of system modularity on the level of repair decisions is investigated. The simulation-based approach is used to solve this joint problem. Which is rarely seen in the existing literature. A genetic algorithm-based simulation is used to investigate the joint problem. The proposed approach also evaluates all the possible configurations of modular design to justify the integrated effect of modularity and maintenance decisions, that is Level of Repair (LOR).

This paper highlights interactive effect of system modularity and level of repair decisions for the system operated in multi-echelon maintenance network. A comparative study is provided on effect of system modularity and level of repair decisions considering the time dependent failure rate and constant failure rate of the system components. A simulation based joint approach is used to solve this problem. The results obtained from the investigation are shown that modularity plays an important role to allocate modularity and level of repair decisions for the fleet system. The novelty of this research work is to identify the role of modularization to optimizing the level of repair decisions. The models, that is time-dependent failure rate and constant failure rate presented in this study provides more practical approach to deal the modularity and level of repair analysis.

The proposed joint approach illustrates using a numerical case of a mechanical system operated at fleet level. More modular structure in terms of number of modules in the machine may be presented for an industrial case. Additionally, the joint approach can also be extended for the any other consumer product and system. But, the prime motive of the paper is to highlights the importance of the modular design while selecting the level of repair decisions.

This is the first work which consider the joint optimization of modular design and level of repair analysis to the best of authors knowledge. Present paper is a more practical approach for identifying the modular design and level of repair decisions for the system operated at fleet level.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how global operations of manufacturing companies influence the choice of product architecture decisions, ranging from integral to modular product designs.

The authors perform a multiple-case study of three global manufacturing companies with integral and modular product architectures.

The authors find that the internal network capabilities, the number of capable plants, the focus of component plants, the focus of assembly plants, the distances from key suppliers to internal plants, and the number of market segments significantly influence the choice of integral vs modular architecture.

This study is limited to three large manufacturing companies with global operations. However, the authors investigate both integral and modular products. The authors develop propositions that can be tested in further survey research.

The findings show that the type of global operations network influences the decision on product architecture, such that certain global operations characteristics support integral product designs, while other characteristics support modular designs.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge this paper is the first study on the explicit impact of global operations on product architecture, rather than the other way around.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate modularity degree in terms of interfaces and innovation.

The research objective is achieved through a modeling approach for deciding modular architecture and its implementation regarding unique components and product innovation. A case example is presented to elaborate on the concept of modularity degree and provide an option for choosing the best module from different alternatives.

The presented approach can be considered a product design strategy, in which loose coupling is achieved through standardized component interfaces. Loosely coupled component interfacing is a prerequisite for developing mass customized products. There needs to be a decision support system to formulate the interfacing in order to achieve maximum benefits. This is illustrated in this paper.

The modeling strategy for measuring the modularity level is formulated theoretically. This approach needs to be validated through an empirical study in order to generalize its findings.

In the industrial arena there is a research gap in identifying and measuring the modularity level, which is formulated in the presented approach. It is hoped that this approach will contribute to filling this research gap in the business environment, which would further benefit managers of firms in their corresponding production processes.

The unique contribution of this modeling approach is articulated through analyzing product architecture, with a view to interpreting the component interfaces in a more productive way. This formulation triggers the decision‐making process in complex product development processes.