Research on the Evolution & Innovation for Modular Product Family

Focusing on the shortage of dynamic evolutionary mechanism and systematic innovation methods of current product family, an innovative and evolutional method at the technical level of modular product family is put forward. The current technical condition of the modular product family is analyzed by constructing requirement-function-technology (R-F-T) mapping model of product family, and the importance of future technology of modular product family is predicted by GM (1, 1) model. The multiple conflicts of product family is identified and resolved using PFN technology in the OTSM-TRIZ process, through the analysis of the initial problem of modular product family in support of enterprise data. Moreover, based on prediction of technology importance and the new function module-technical matrix (FMTM), the conceptual planning of product family is obtained by calculating the diversity of function modules of conceptual product family according to platform ratio. An analysis example of product family of small wheel loader show the effectiveness of the method.