Modular Design
The future of design lies with a products’ ability to be easily taken apart to be repaired. Here we introduce the concept of modular design, why it is important and why it will become the basis for many products in the future.
What is modular design? Modular design refers to designing products by organising sub-assemblies and components as distinct building blocks (i.e., modules) that can be integrated through configuration to fulfill various customer and engineering requirements. The main advantages of modular design include design flexibility, augmentation, and cost reduction.
Due to grouping the components to each module, the designer can easily modify each module instead of changing the whole design. In addition, the system can be upgraded by adding new functions simply by plugging a new module so that the system can be augmented within a specific range. Furthermore, the modularised components also make possible concurrent engineering and flexible manufacturing. Modular design classified all components in different products into variant and common modules constructed in a core platform. By doing so, it becomes feasible to customise large varieties of high-demand products by achieving economy of scale.
References:
- Modular Design: Shareicon.net
- ‘Modular Design’ Tseng, Mitchell M., Yue Wang, Roger J. Jiao. (2018) In: Chatti S., Laperrière L., Reinhart G., Tolio T., The International Academy for Production (eds) CIRP Encyclopedia of Production Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
