Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1
M.Sc. Student, Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Technology and Engineering, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
2
Associate Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Technology and Engineering, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
3
Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
In today’s competitive landscape, manufacturing companies face increasing pressure to rapidly meet customer needs while simultaneously reducing costs and shortening product life cycles. As a strategic response to this situation, the concept of Agile Product Family Development has emerged, enabling companies to produce various related products that share common components, in order to capture different market segments more quickly and ahead of competitors. However, the effectiveness of this process is often constrained by a lack of understanding of the causal relationships among its influencing factors. This study seeks to bridge this gap by focusing on the automotive industry, and in particular the Iranian automaker SAIPA. The first objective of the research was to identify the critical success factors of the product family development process, and then to model the causal relationships among these factors in order to develop a roadmap for enhancing agility in product family development in the Iranian automotive sector. The research is applied in nature and employs a descriptive–survey method. Through a review of the literature, 29 key factors in agile product family development were identified and classified into five main groups. Subsequently, the fuzzy concept mapping method was used to model the causal relationships among the identified factors, based on responses collected from questionnaires distributed to 16 managers and expert specialists at SAIPA. The proposed model suggests that by focusing on the causal relationships embedded in the model, managers can respond to customer needs while maintaining high quality, low cost, and short product development cycles.
Highlights
- Reviewing the literature related to product family development and agility
- Identifying the factors influencing agile product family development through statistical analysis
- Modeling the causal relationships among the factors affecting agile new product development using the fuzzy concept mapping method in SAIPA
Keywords
Copyright © Hamidreza Amini, Roksana Fekri, Fahimeh Soltanian
License
This article is released under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone is free to copy, share, translate, and adapt this article for any purpose, whether commercial or non-commercial, as long as proper citation is given to the authors and original publication.
