Module management and DSM: A Case study in the household appliances field

The objective of the present work is to explore and experiment a new methodology for the preliminary design of complex products in a PLM framework. TRIZ methodology has been evaluated within the context of modular design techniques with the aim of gathering an improved roadmap for conceptual design. TRIZ is both a methodology and a set of tools for problem solving and systematic innovation of products and processes. Modularity is an efficient way to build products by interfacing smaller subsystems that can be designed and managed independently, enabling different inputs to be recombined to obtain many variants. Ordinary tools used to implement modularity in everyday activities along the product lifecycle depend largely on the qualitative evaluation of parameters based only on technicians’ experience. This brings uncertainty in the results obtained and decreases the repetitiveness of application of best practices throughout the company. The core of the research is represented by the integration between module management paradigm with TRIZ tools (e.g. functional analysis, laws of evolution and contradiction matrix) to decrease such uncertainty and provide the technicians with a more systematic design method. A case study based on the modular design process of a washing machine shows the potential benefits of the newly introduced methodology in respect of the traditional design process.