An approach for product line design selection under uncertainty and competition

An approach in product line design is presented in which a line of products is selected while accounting for their market potential. In this approach, the product line design selection is viewed as a selection problem with two main stages: design alternative generation and product line design evaluation and selection. The focus of this paper is on the product line design evaluation and selection stage. Issues considered include a large variety of customers' preferences, market competitions, multiple business goals, uncertainties in several factors that are used for evaluating the design alternatives, and commonality among the alternatives in a product line. Because of the combinatorial nature of the problem, a genetic algorithm is used in the evaluation stage. Product line design selection of a cordless screwdriver is used as a demonstration example. The emphasis in the example is more on the approach and not in the details of the example per se.