SWOT Analysis for
Global Product Families
IE/ME 546 Designing product families
•Rohini B. Prabhakar
•Seong Rae Cho
•Rajeev Murugaswamy
•Shrikanth Janardhana
•Chun-yu “Jesse” Lin
•Gopal Nadadur
Project definition
Introduction
• Globalization of markets
– Manufacturers need to price their offerings
competitively in order to survive the competition
– Production-related operations need to be made costeffective
• Dilemma:
Global companies must choose either of the following
options:
– Option A: Invest in R&D to develop product
platforms
– Option B: Outsource manufacturing, in part or
completely, to more economically-favorable
locations (i.e., regions with low-cost labor, raw
materials, infrastructure, etc.)
1
Project definition
Objectives
• Long-term
To formulate a methodology and to design metrics and tools to assist
companies of any industry in deciding between the two manufacturing
options
• Short-term
– To conduct extensive benchmarking and literature review to identify
readily-applicable metrics and tools, if available
– To determine the kinds of data (e.g., cost of labor, tooling, raw
materials, shipping, etc.) required to design new decision-making
metrics and tools
– To demonstrate decision-making metrics and tools by applying it on
one or two simple, easily-accessible product families
Project definition
…continued
• This project will be formulated as an Multi
Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem.
• Decisions need to be made under a group of
criteria.
• A specific decision making tool will be
adopted to solve this problem.
• The result generated from our decision
system will provide companies in making
appropriate global executive strategies
2
Project process
Objectives
Tasks
Step 1
Project initiation
1. Problem definition
2. Literature review
•
•
Step 2
Framework construction
Step 3
Application and analysis
Data collection
Selection or development of
the decision-making tool
1. Demonstration using case studies
2. Strategy analysis
Project process
…continued
Gantt Chart
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SWOT Analysis for Global Product Families
ME/IE 546 Designing Product Families
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100%
6
6
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1.3 Literature Review
3/03/13
3/15/13
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30%
13
3
10
3/16/13
4/01/13
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4/02/13
4/15/13
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3.1 Demonstration using case studies
4/13/13
4/26/13
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14
3.2 Strategy Analysis
4/24/13
5/01/13
8
0%
8
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8
4
5/05/13
5/05/13
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1
2
Framework Construction
2.1 Data Collection
2.2 Selection & Development of Decision making tool
3
13 - May - 13
3/02/13
06 - May - 13
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2/25/13
29 - Apr - 13
5
22 - Apr - 13
5
15 - Apr - 13
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100%
08 - Apr - 13
1
5
01 - Apr - 13
1
2/24/13
25 - Mar - 13
Days Remaining
100%
2/20/13
18 - Mar - 13
Days Complete
1
1.1 Problem Definition
1.2 Brainstorming & Preliminary ideas
Tasks
Project Initiation
11 - Mar - 13
Working Days
2/19/13
1
04 - Mar - 13
End
2/19/13
WBS
25 - Feb - 13
Start
% Complete
First Day of Week (Sun=1): 2
Duration (Days)
(Wed) (vertical red line)
(Tue)
18 - Feb - 13
Today's Date: 3/6/13
Start Date: 2/19/13
[42]
Application and analysis
Final Project presentation
3
Preliminary Ideas
Some decision-making criteria
• Cost
Labor
Shipping
Government (Tax, tariff duties, etc.)
Platform Development
• Product design
Product commonality
Manufacturing concern (assembly, materials, etc.)
Sustainability concern (laws, regulations, etc.)
Preliminary Ideas
Possible decision-making tools
• Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
Easy to use, easy to calculate
Can be applied to multiple decision-makers’ scenarios
Subjective
• Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)
Can deal with multiple criteria
Objective; no weighing criteria required
Fuzzy or Interval DEA can handle uncertainty
• Multiple Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT)
Superior in handling uncertainty
Complex in computation
Subjective
4