FORECASTING OF FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS BASED ON HISTORIC ANALYSIS
DS 77: Proceedings of the DESIGN 2014 13th International Design Conference
                        Year: 2014
                        Editor: Marjanovic Dorian, Storga Mario, Pavkovic Neven, Bojcetic Nenad
                        Author: Bauer ,W.; Werner, C.; Elezi, F.; Maurer ,M.
                        Series: DESIGN
                        Section: DESIGN PROCESSES
                        Page(s): 735-748
                        
Abstract
Due to a high required variety and changes in the environment, product platforms should represent a stable, unchanged core over its lifecycle. Flexible modules provide the product differentiation. We developed an three-step analysis and forecast approach: the first step includes a historic analysis of offered variants. Based on this, a prognosis of future developments is executed by mathematical models. In the last step, the previous results are compared to determine the dynamics of the characteristics for a robust product platform design. The approach is validated by an industrial case study.
Keywords: historic analysis, forecasting, variant management, platform design