Documentation and Management of Product Knowledge in a System for Automated Variant Design: A Case Study

A business strategy based on customized products with a high level of variety requires systems for efficient generation of product variants. The development of a system for automated variant design is a significant investment in time and money. To maintain the system’s usefulness over time, frequent updating of design rules and execution control will normally become a necessity. Significant efforts are required for maintenance and adapting an established system to changes in product technology, new product knowledge, production practices, new customers and so forth. Another important aspect that has been identified, is the reuse of the system encapsulated generic product family descriptions, for example design rules, when developing a new product family. In this paper a case study is presented with the objectives to provide an understanding and an insight into a real industrial case. A focus is put on the documentation and management of product related knowledge for the purpose of revealing problems related to the current state of practice at the company to identify areas for improvements. The results are based on the experiences from a case study at a company with long experience of systems for automated variant design.