Product platforms play an important role for the efficient customisation and variant forming of products in many companies. In this paper four different companies ranging from OEM to B2B suppliers have been interviewed on how they engage in technology and product development, create and maintain product platforms and how they respond to the changing requirements on the platforms and on the products and product families derived from them. The objective is to find how product platforms are used to meet the demands of efficient product customisation. The companies all have identifiable product platforms and established processes for product development. However, there are differences in how they define technology development, how the platforms are created, maintained, replaced and what the platforms contain. The introduction of new technology into the platforms and how the platforms are used from a Lean product development perspective has been of interest in the survey as reported in the paper.

Product platforms has been widely accepted in industry as a means to reach both high product variety while maintaining business efficiency. For suppliers of highly customised products, however, the development of a platform based upon predefined modules is a challenge. This is due to the large differ-ences between the various systems their products are to be integrated into and the customer's individual preferences. What is common for most platform descriptions is the high level of concretisation, such as predefined modules, they are built upon, but how can companies act when that is not possible? Are there other principles that can be used for the definition of a product platform? This paper presents a concept to incorporate other types of descriptions of different levels of concretisation into a product platform. Parts of the concept has been realised in a computer support tool and tested at a case company in order to improve their quotation process.

Companies developing highly customized products within the supplier industry are continuously faced with fluctuating requirements during both the quotation process and continued development. This research proposes a platform approach to aid suppliers when modularity or platform scalability do not suffice. The platform approach, Design Platform, focuses on descriptions that not only contain information about tangible components and systems but also information, knowledge and methods supporting the actual design of the product. A support system called Design Platform Manager has been developed to aid in using the platform approach and is introduced at a supplier active in the automotive industry. The system enables creation of generic product items that can be structured and instantiated to become product variants as well as Design Elements that are blocks of knowledge that describe a design or supports the activity of designing. A first evaluation is made that overall shows good result according to the company representatives.

Companies developing highly customised products are continuously faced with fluctuating requirements during the early and late stages of the product development (PD) process. This differs from companies that develop end-consumer products, which uses fixed specifications and where product platforms have been a successful enabler for efficient customisation. However, in the past, product platforms have not been able to fully support companies working in an engineer-to-order business environment. This article outlines the results from a three-year collaborative research project between academics within the area of engineering design and practitioners from the engineer-to-order industry. The research introduces a design platform (DP) that aims to support the development of customised products when traditional platform concepts do not suffice. The platform approach provides a coherent environment for heterogeneous design assets to be used in PD by supporting both the design activity and the finished solutions. The needs and abilities regarding such a platform were investigated through a series of interviews and workshops at four companies. Then, the DP was modelled and support tools were developed. Finally, company representatives evaluated the complete DP and its applications, reporting promising results.

Original equipment suppliers (OES) that develop unique products are continuously faced with changing requirements during both the quotation and product development processes. This challenge is a different reality from companies that develop off-the-shelf products for the end consumer, which use fixed specifications and where product platforms have been a strong enabler for efficient mass customization. However, product platforms cannot adequately support companies working as OES. The reason is that a high level of customization is required which means that interfaces cannot be standardized, the performance is not negotiable, requirements are not initially fixed, and the specific system interacts with, is affected by, or affects other systems that are simultaneously developed in a transdisciplinary environment. The design platform (DP) approach provides a coherent environment for heterogeneous and transdisciplinary design resources to be used in product development by supporting both designing and off-the-shelf solutions. This research describes the introduction, application and further development of the DP approach at an automotive supplier to support the development of customized solutions when traditional modularity or platform scalability do not suffice. A computer tool called Design Platform Manager has been developed to support the creation and visualization of the DP. The support tool has a connection to a product data management database to link the platform model to the various kinds of engineering assets needed or intended to support variant creation. Finally, the support tool was evaluated by the case company representatives showing promising results. 

A common strategy which has in many cases become a necessity in product developing companies is to apply platform thinking to some extent. Engineer-to-order (ETO) companies are firms that need to invest in a significant amount engineering time in each product ordered by customers. These companies have in the past been known to not be fully able to apply platform strategies. An area of concern to product development is the design and manufacture of machine tools aimed for part manufacturing which is a large investment and a critical bottle neck. As a response to these challenges the design platform (DP) concept was developed which is founded on the re-use of company assets. This paper aims to investigate the application of the DP in a company designing and producing unique high-pressure die casting tools for different applications and customers. To enable companies of this character to utilize platform thinking to a higher degree and thus increase the efficiency in product development, a focus is set on modelling and managing relations within the DP. In addition, a PDM system setup is proposed together with an integrated support application for the realisation in industry.