Proposal of a modular design methodology for product life cycle design

Modular design is an important elemental technique in life cycle design. Modularity may increase maintainability, upgradability, and so on. Appropriate modular structure differs according to applied life cycle options; e.g., while the modular structure for recycling should be based on material kinds, the structure for upgrading should be based on functions to be obsolete. This paper proposes a modular design methodology that derives modular structures flexibly depending on applied life cycle options by utilizing the attributes of components and geometric model. The components are classified into some groups according to the similarity of attributes and the geometric information is employed to derive a geometrically feasible modular structure within the group. This paper also illustrates the prototype system that implements the proposed method and a case study of a printer.