A Study of the Application of Design Assets in Product Development

The introduction of product platforms has been acknowledged as a strategic enabler for increased business competitiveness. A vast body of research has described different aspects of platforms, but little work has been done on defining or delimiting the different types of elements that may build up a platform. Design assets include platform elements that are not commonly considered as a part of a platform. Previous research has suggested the introduction of formalized design assets to systematically extend an items-based platform with intangible elements. These are transdisciplinary objects, specifically prepared for reuse between projects to provide support for a wide range of engineering activities: specialized CAD geometry, working methods, spread sheets, function models or different types of knowledge representations, among others. The presented research is part of a larger project seeking to improve the collaboration between product development and manufacturing. This paper focuses on the use of potential and formal design assets at a development department of a global manufacturer of consumer products. The results show that the application of formal design assets depends on several factors, such as the level of professional experience and individual working styles. The contribution of the paper is a description of which formal and informal design assets that are used and a discussion on how the formal assets can be better utilized.