Modular Design
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Modular Design
Theory and Application
Mitchell M. Tseng1,2, Yue Wang3 and Roger J. Jiao4 1 Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan 2 The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China 3 Hang Seng Management College, Hong Kong, China 4 The George M. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
Introduction Modular design is basically to decompose complex systems into simple modules in order to more efficiently organize complex designs and processes. The concept was first introduced by (Starr 1965), in which the use of modular product in production was proposed as a new concept to develop variety. It makes possible to modify specific modules for a new requirement without influencing the main infrastructure, so that the complex problems can be decomposed into several small ones. Modular design concept has been employed in many fields of design and manufacturing. The main advantages of modular design include design flexibility, augmentation, and cost reduction. Due to grouping the components to each module, the designer can easily modify each module instead of changing the whole design. In addition, the system can be upgraded by adding new functions simply by plugging a new module so that the system can be augmented within a specific range. Furthermore, the modularized components also make possible concurrent engineering and flexible manufacturing. Modular design classified all components in different products into variant and common modules constructed in a core platform. By doing so, it becomes feasible to customize large varieties of high demand products through achieving
Synonyms Modularity
Definition Modular design refers to designing products by organizing sub-assemblies and components as distinct building blocks (i.e., modules) that can be integrated through configuration to fulfill various customer and engineering requirements.
# CIRP 2018 The International Academy for Production Engineering et al. (eds.), CIRP Encyclopedia of Production Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35950-7_6460-4
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economy of scale. Current product family design concept and process family approaches are all based on the concept of modular design. Modular design relies on the product architecture and product platform concepts. Product architecture is defined as a scheme where the physical components are linked to functional elements to form various products (Ulrich and Eppinger 1995). The architecture can be designed as modular, generating a “one-to-one” relationship between functional and physical elements. The purpose is to decouple each element so that a change in one component does not influence changes in others in neither a functional nor a physical way. The platform is defined as “a set of subsystems and interfaces developed to form a common structure from which a stream of derivative products can be efficiently developed and produced” (Meyer and Lehnerd 1997). Compared to the architecture, the platform concept emphasizes more on the configuration of physical com
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