Enabling Modularization Potentials by Standardized Vehicle Layouts
DS 81: Proceedings of NordDesign 2014, Espoo, Finland 27-29th August 2014
Year: 2014
Editor: Miko Laakso, Kalevi Ekman
Author: Forg, Armin; Stocker, Johannes; Kreimeyer, Matthias; Lienkamp, Markus
Series: NordDESIGN
Institution: 1: Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany; 2: MAN Truck & Bus AG, Germany
Section: Tools, methods and approaches in product development
Page(s): 754-764
ISBN: 978-1-904670-58-2
Abstract
Resulting from a high variety of customer utilization scenarios, a high variant spectrum at comparatively low production volumes is characteristic for commercial vehicle manufacturers. Within a product lifecycle of around 15 to 20 years, the vehicle portfolio and its component building blocks need to be revised cyclically and fundamentally to comply with new legislation and meet changing customer requirements. The outcome is evolutionary growth of the diversified portfolio. Negative consequences are high inner variance, strong interconnectedness of many components and hardly predictable change distribution. This paper focuses on modular design for commercial vehicles and existing approaches to modularisation are presented. However, these do not refer to all aspects necessary for the modularisation of commercial vehicles. A model for generic package space decomposition is introduced, which supports the creation of essential synergetic effects by identifying hot spots for modularisation potentials. Focusing on one specific package sector, different layouts and their characteristics are compared and evaluated in order to reduce internal variance without reducing the market-related external variance.
Keywords: Commercial vehicle design, modularisation, product architecture, standardisation, vehicle layout, generic package space decomposition