All systems and products are designed to fulfil the needs of their stakeholders. Those needs evolve over time, though, and thus products that can be adapted to altered demands and boundary conditions most flexibly will have an increased life cycle value to the stakeholder. On the other hand alterations in product architecture lead both to engineering effort as well as to cost associated with physical changes in the design. This paper examines the valuation of adaptability options in order to support the engineering decision towards or against their inclusion on a product architecture level.     «

All systems and products are designed to fulfil the needs of their stakeholders. Those needs evolve over time, though, and thus products that can be adapted to altered demands and boundary conditions most flexibly will have an increased life cycle value to the stakeholder. On the other hand alterations in product architecture lead both to engineering effort as well as to cost associated with physical changes in the design. This paper examines the valuation of adaptability options in order to sup...     »