Hierarchical optimization in architecture and design of product family

The architecture and design of product family are the key links during the whole value creation process and the thought and technology of optimization are the important foundation and core framework in the architecture and design. The common single-level programming was used for architecture and design of product family in the past research. So configuration and scaling design and platform and customization design as the core problems in product family optimization were performed respectively by two stages. In this paper the integrated optimization of product family is essentially a hierarchical problem is firstly argued. Then hierarchical optimization in architecture and design is discussed systematically: describing the hierarchical optimization problems exist in architecture and design of product family, constructing a whole method framework for the analysis and solution of these problems including problem classification and classification model, conceptual model and mathematical model of hierarchical optimization, solving method choice for engineering application. At last an application example is given.