Data Model for Managing Product Complexity

Across all industries, companies face the challenge of managing the complexity offered externally to customers while at the same time mastering or, if necessary, reducing internal complexity. However, due to volatile markets, increasing need for individualization and shorter product life cycles, companies tend to respond with a greater variety of products. In addition, the increasing number of externally offered product and component variants are subject to continuous change over time. In order to manage product-induced complexity, analyses of the market, the product and the processes are of importance. For this purpose, existing approaches insufficiently address the use of existing company data. Therefore, this paper aims at the development of a data model to improve the transparency and controllability of product complexity. This is achieved by accessing decision-relevant information.