Enterprise Systems for Product Portfolio Design

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of this proposed research is to develop a new enterprise model for design, by expanding the scope of traditional design to include consideration of the enterprise within which the product will be manufactured, operated and recovered. The approach integrates a recycling/remanufacturing enterprise model with a product portfolio design model which is influenced by dynamically changing market demands. Data mining techniques will be fully exploited to satisfy the need for large data sets of information in real time. A decomposition-based design optimization model which integrates modeling of the design and the enterprise throughout the life cycle of products in multiple generations will be developed. The result will be a design methodology which will efficiently identify those products that have the potential of maximizing the enterprise utility by sharing platforms enabled by predictive data mining capabilities. If successful, the results of this research will offer a new and improved way of analyzing and linking large-scale, dynamic, quantitative information to the product design process through the use of cyberinfrastructure. Long term societal benefits include recovering the economic value that is currently wasted in discarded products, decreasing environmental impacts and decreasing total costs to consumers. Manufacturers will be able to achieve the goal of cost-effective product take-back with access to frequently updated data. On the education front, a set of case studies will be developed for use by engineering educators. The case studies will be written in the fashion typically employed by business schools where students learn from real-world experiences. These case studies will be publicly available on the web after being tested in the Technology and Management Program, a collaborative effort between the College of Engineering, the College of Business, and a set of industrial sponsors. Results will also be integrated into an engineering-oriented industrially sponsored senior design course.