A Bottom-Up Approach for BOM Generation and Its Application in Mass Customization

Abstract

Complex product development faces huge amount of components with complex structure and dynamic changes in product lifecycle, which is a key challenge in mass customization. This paper addresses this issue by providing a product configuration solution based on bill of materials (BOM): First, conceptual objects with flexible structure and unified identifier (UID) in 2d-code form are built to represent business entities. Second, the relations among the instances of the conceptual objects are analyzed to dynamically generate BOM in different lifecycle phase, which is the product configuration view. Third, quality information monitoring and completeness check can be achieved based on BOM structure. Finally, a prototype system for aircraft manufacturing is built, which supports requirement change and quality management in the whole product lifecycle.