Changeability and agility enablers in one-of-a-kind product development and design processes
Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: The smart factories that are already beginning to appear employ a completely new approach to product creation. Smart products are uniquely identifiable and know both their current status and alternative routes to achieving their target state. Smart factories allow individual customer requirements to be met, meaning that even one-off items can be manufactured profitably. In smart industry, dynamic business and engineering processes enable last-minute changes to design and production, delivering the ability to respond flexibly to disruptions and failures on behalf of suppliers. This paper presents a case study of product development and design process renovation according to changeability paradigm in one-of-a-kind industrial environment. It demonstrates how integration of changeability with agile design strategies crucially contribute to improve the operations of a highly individualized product development business. Successful management of ‘never-ending’ engineering changes appears to be the most important aspect in this field. Contribution of the presented work is a generalized framework that demonstrates how companies in such specific environments can improve competitiveness through the utilization of changeability concepts. The included case study validated the proposed changeability model and offers valuable insights into how to implement this in practice.
Source: Research in Engineering Design
Authors: M. Varl, J. Duhovnik, J. Tavčar
Institutions: University of Ljubljana, Lund University
Language: English
Subfield: Management of Technology and Innovation
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,280
Award: G5160743205
OpenAlex ID: W3209409135