Product portfolio mapping used to structure a mature sub-system with large variation – A case study

Abstract

Managing mature products with high variability is an increasing concern for industrial companies. Product variability affects the operational streamlining efforts from product design to production, inventory, selling, and service. In this research, we follow a case where the company faces challenges in manufacturing cost and configuration of both existing and new variants. The purpose of this study is to investigate how product portfolio mapping can structure technical product data to ease the challenges. We analyzed more than 13,000 sales orders executed between 1997-2019 of a mature sub-system with large variability. We used Systems Architecting principles in combination with requirements from manufacturing and logistics to create a generic architecture that allows variability in the manufacturing flow. We added interface mapping, the manufacturing view, and the logistic view to enhance product portfolio analysis found in literature. We found significant improvements in both configuration time and the cost prediction accuracy. The company evaluated this research as an overall quality improvement that standardizes the workflow and remove existing bottlenecks.