A Resource Capability Model to Support Product Family Analysis

In automotive industry there is a growing concern for the total economy of a manufacturing system throughout its life-cycle. In order to decrease its affect on product cost a better utilization of the manufacturing system is necessary. Product family analysis is a means to group products with common manufacturing aspects and analyze its manufacturability in a possible or existing manufacturing solution. The aim of this research is to provide support for product family analysis by enabling reasoning about resource's capability, i.e. what a resource can do and how well it can do it.