For example, Gartner predicts that the automotive industry will face significant challenges as showroom life shortens and small annual volumes begin to predominate. Manufacturers will need to complete model changeovers to full volume in weeks, not months. This, in turn, will require that the same tooling, parts and processes increasingly span multiple models and multiple generations of vehicles.1
This type of market change means companies will need to move beyond opportunistic reuse of parts and processes to a proactive focus on reuse through commonization, standardization and modularity. Part level reuse represents only a small fraction of the potential business value that is possible.
According to a recent AberdeenGroup survey, 46 percent of companies are pursuing the ability to better create, capture and re-use product knowledge as a way to increase product revenue while controlling costs.2 Companies that have taken this approach have realized significant economic benefits and competitive advantage in global markets by improving quality, speeding time-to-market and becoming more cost-competitive.
The core of a platform commonization strategy is a process of finding the potentially common elements (product and manufacturing processes) within a family of products and designing for commonization and standardization of them.3
As an example, the U.S. Military and eight partner countries participating in the U.S. Defense industry's Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program chose an "affordability-through-commonality" strategy. The program is developing three variants from a single aircraft platform. Each variant will include 70 percent shared content, yet will meet the particular requirements of each agency and partner country. In the past, they developed three totally unique aircraft to satisfy the same need. The tri-service commonality reduces acquisition, operations and support costs while delivering the next generation combat capability.
In the machinery industry, leading companies like Air Products and Chemicals have given commonization and reuse a strategic role in their business operations. Their focus on designing products and plants using platforms and re-usable modules has driven design costs down, freeing up resources for innovation and providing the speed-to-market required to give them a competitive advantage.
Everyone in the value chain stands to benefit from identifying elements that can be readily adapted and re-used: OEMs, suppliers and strategic partners - program management, product engineering, manufacturing, purchasing, field operations and service.
To drive innovation through commonization and reuse, companies must be able to capture product and process content and make it globally accessible throughout their organization. PLM supports strategic commonization enabling companies to manage the 'digital product platform' during in-process data reuse and capture, and by providing knowledge-enabled frameworks, global data management and an integrated reuse and capture environment. All of these capabilities in one PLM solution enable a company to build a Global Innovation Network that fully leverages the gains available through a commonization and reuse strategy, including faster innovation, increased revenues and accelerated business growth.
To learn more about how companies can build competitive advantage through a PLM-enabled commonization and reuse strategy, please visit http://www.ugs.com/initiatives/commonization/ where you will find a wealth of in-depth information including whitepapers, case studies, recommended reading and more.
1: Predicts 2006: The automotive industry lays the foundation for major transformation
2: Product innovation agenda benchmark report, 2005
3: Product platform commonization, H. Qin,Y. Zhong, R. Xiao,W. Zhang, International Journal Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2005
