Product Design for Matrix-Structured Manufacturing Systems

In recent years, the demand for smarter and more customized products has increased. Traditional manufacturing systems are typically designed for mass production, which is not suitable for producing customized products. It requires a new manufacturing system that is flexible, scalable, and reconfigurable, for example, a matrix-structured manufacturing system. As the manufacturing system and product design form a symbiotic relationship, products should also be designed for the new manufacturing system to optimize performance. This paper presents a four-stage methodology to improve the product and product family design targeted production in matrix-structured manufacturing systems. The four stages include a product family analysis, indicator calculations, product optimization, and digital twin-based verification and validation. The proposed methodology is applied in a laboratory case study. The result shows that the improved product design has a significantly higher design efficiency than the original ones. We conclude that the methodology of Design for Matrix-Structured Manufacturing Systems has a holistic view on the product family and can optimize the production efficiency in matrix-structured manufacturing systems.