Product platforms are frequently applied in industry for designing product families. The product platform builds the basis for the derivation of the offered variants. As the platforms are characterized by a long life cycle, changes induced by internal and external influences will occur to the product family during the utilization phase. This results in new variants which often cause a lot of effort for implementation. To avoid these time-consuming and costly efforts, the dynamic changes and variations during the life cycle of the platform must be anticipated and considered in the planning of the platform. The platform structure can be planned and designed according to the expected changes and decrease their later change impact. The revisions of the platform can be scheduled in accordance to the changing context. This paper presents an approach to anticipate the influences which cause changes to the platform structure and consider them in the design of the platform and module structure. Thereby, occurring changes during the life cycle of the platform have lower impact and can be implemented in fast and cost-efficient way.     «

Product platforms are frequently applied in industry for designing product families. The product platform builds the basis for the derivation of the offered variants. As the platforms are characterized by a long life cycle, changes induced by internal and external influences will occur to the product family during the utilization phase. This results in new variants which often cause a lot of effort for implementation. To avoid these time-consuming and costly efforts, the dynamic changes and vari...     »