Wang Haijun  Sun Baoyuan

(School of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024)

Zhang Jianming  Wang Jijun  Wei Xiaopeng

(Center for Advanced Design Technology, Dalian University, Dalian 116622)

Abstract: Satisfaction of individual customer requirements has increasingly become essential for manufacturing firms to earn their superior competences, a key approach to which is rationally carrying out modular product configuration during mass customization. Product configuration design under modular architecture in product family toward a computational means is discussed, and a mathematic model to maximize comprehensive performances with a mixture of views from customer’s needs is subsequently formulated. Based on the consequent framework, a simulated annealing technique is applied to numerically optimize the problem in a systematical form. In addition, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to distribute weights for performance and requirement factors. Combining the simulation result and software implementation of a concrete case—VA impeller washer, the method advanced shows its validity and promise. Therefore, it provides another practical numerical tool of modular configuration design for mass customization.

Key words: Mass customization  Modularization  Module instance  Customer requirements  Product configuration

CLC No: TH122

国家863/CIMS主题基金(2001AA412011)、国家自然科学基金 (60174037, 50275013)和大连市科技基金(2002A1GX025)资助项目. Received 20040509, received in revised form 20041108