Flexible Product Platforms: Framework and Case Study

Mass customization and market uncertainty require increased functional and physical bandwidth in product platforms. This paper presents a flexible platform design process in response to such future uncertainty. The process consists of seven iterative steps and is applied to an automotive body-in-white (BIW) where 10 out of 21 components are identified as potential candidates for embedding flexibility. The paper shows how to systematically pinpoint and value flexible elements in platforms. This allows increased product family profit despite uncertain variant demand, and specification changes. We show how embedding flexibility suppresses change propagation and lowers switch costs, despite an increase of 34% in initial investment for equipment and tooling. Monte Carlo simulation results of 12 future scenarios reveal that as the degree of uncertainty increases, the value of embedding flexibility also increases. The findings suggest that if length and styling changes occur every four years or faster, the flexible BIW platform will be superior.