Commonality in product programs �an evaluation framework

It is a trend that companies are developing new products and product variants faster and at a greater number. This product proliferation increases costs and many companies are experiencing lower profit. Companies have therefore introduced strategies such as product platforms and modularization. Reusing old components in new products is seen as a key to reduce costs. Information about how many components that are reused is easily available to designers from MRP systems. Such numbers can be misleading since a small change can both lead to a minor difference and a demand for a totally new production line. There is a lack of good representation and measurement of such differences. This paper describes a method to calculate the degree of reuse in activities through all life phases (engineering, purchasing, machining, assembly etc.).