The challenges related to product structures, which go hand in hand with megatrends such as individualization, can be met with the modularity of product structures. With the help of various modularization methods, modular product structures are created with regard to different goals. There are many references to the effects of modular product structures on life phases and economic targets in the literature. These effects were collected in previous research in a generic impact model. Since there is a lot of information about the effects, such models become very comprehensive and thereby difficult to handle. For this reason, the impact model is consistently generated using SysML. The adaptation to company scenarios is possible through the use of simulations with which, for example, company-related and product-related boundary conditions can be controlled by means of a User Interface.

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The design of modular product families enables a high external variety of products by a low internal variety of components and processes. This variety optimization leads to large economic savings along the entire value chain. However, when designing and selecting suitable modular product architecture concepts, often only direct costs are considered, and indirect costs as well as cross-cost center benefits are neglected. A lack of knowledge about the full savings potential often results in the selection of inferior solutions. Since available approaches do not adequately address this problem, this paper provides a new methodological support tool that ensures consideration of the full savings potentials in the evaluation of modular product architecture concepts. For this purpose, the visual knowledge base of the Impact Model of Modular Product Families (IMF) is used, extended and implemented in a model-based environment using SysML. The newly developed Sys-IMF is then applied to the product family example of electric medium-voltage motors. The support tool is dynamic, expandable and filterable and embedded in a methodical procedure for knowledge-based decision support. Sys-IMF supports decision makers in the early phase of interdisciplinary product development and enables the selection of the most suitable modular solution for the company.