Platform-based product development in the process industry: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Platform-based product development has been applied extensively in discrete manufacturing industry to accommodate changing market demands. Nevertheless, while process industry manufacturers face similar market demands, the topic is only sparsely covered in literature. Through a systematic review of the literature, this study uncovers the definitions used, drivers behind, approaches and methods applied, and industry examples of platform-based product development in the process industry. Based on these analyses, a research agenda is then proposed to further the knowledge of this topic. The study identified existing definitions of key platformrelated terms used in several studies and furthermore discovered new definitions for some terms. The most prominent drivers behind pursuing platform-based product development was found to be cost reduction and productivity of product development, with development lead time reduction playing a less significant role. Literature related to platform-based product development focuses primarily on product design and development issues, with less attention given to market, manufacturing, and supply chain issues. Only few industrial cases were identified within the process industry while multiple anecdotal descriptions were discovered. For future research, further insight into key platform concepts, applicability of existing methods, broader value chain focus and detailed industrial cases are considered relevant.

The relationship between extreme contexts, organizational change capacity, and firm product and process innovation

“…Furthermore, operational deficiencies as a threat to a firm's context confirm the past studies from the perspective of the extreme context. Past studies extensively demonstrated that operational deficiencies force firms to improve their innovation efforts to remain competitive (Lee et al, 2023;Nguyen et al, 2022;Afum et al, 2023;Andersen et al, 2023). This current study spots that firms are less prepared to realize the value of innovation attempts in the perception of extreme contexts without recognizing those deficiencies.…”

Optimal Sustainable Manufacturing for Product Family Architecture in Intelligent Manufacturing: A Hierarchical Joint Optimization Approach

“…The definition of PFA stands as a pivotal undertaking in any industry's product development activity [47]. Given that this paper focuses on the modular architecture of products and collaborative decision-making design, the upper-level modular architecture is solely for configuring functional elements (choosing module instances) and aligning functional elements with physical components (determining the quantity of product variants and compound modules).…”

HVLV Engineering With Module System(s), Eto and Lean Design – Study on Practitioner Information Needs

“…Different kind of design automation and design support systems are studied. The drivers behind platform-based approach in process industry manufacturing are cost reduction, productivity of product development and shorten lead time (Andersen et al, 2022). Design automatization (Willner et al, 2016a) and sales configurators are studied in ETO context.…”

“…Standardisation, modularisation, configuration, platforms, knowledge-based engineering, design automation, lean thinking are also used in project business. The drivers behind platform-based approach are cost reduction, productivity of product development and shorten lead time (Andersen et al, 2022). HVLV context is studied from engineering-to-order (ETO) and configurator viewpoints and from lean and supply management viewpoints.…”