A Multiobjective Optimization Approach for Product Line Design

Product line design is a key decision area that a product development team has to deal with in the early stages of product development. Previous studies of product line design have focused on single-objective optimization. However, several optimization objectives may be simultaneously pursued, and the solutions that can address the objectives are required in many practical scenarios. In this research, we propose a one-step multiobjective optimization approach for product line design. The proposed optimization model has three objectives: 1) maximizing the market share of a company's products; 2) minimizing the total product development cost of a product line; and 3) minimizing the total product development cycle time. A curve-fitting method is introduced into the part-worth utility models so that the optimization model can be applied to products with level-based attributes and attributes that have continuous values. A multiobjective genetic algorithm is adopted to solve the optimization model, obtaining a set of nondominated solutions. With the solutions, a new product development team can select a preferred solution interactively in a 2-D graph. An example of the optimal design of a product line of digital cameras is used to illustrate the proposed approach.