Volume 4 - Volume 4
LITERATURE CLASSIFICATION AND ANALYSIS ON MODULARITY: FUTURE PERSPECTIVES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
Abstract
New product development has become a joint effort of several organizations. Varied demands by
customers, pressure to reduce product development time and cost minimization are some of the
recent challenges that manufacturing and service companies are facing. In this context, it is noted
that modularity has been taken into account in the companies’ business strategy, aiming to
overcome these challenges. Therefore, this study examines the literature regarding modularity, with
the purpose of describing modularity’s main benefits and difficulties/barriers as well as pointing
out emerging topics and future perspectives. To achieve this objective, a theoretical-conceptual
study was conducted, identifying relevant literature and thus building a portfolio specially to find
out new research opportunities to develop further studies. It was observed that most highlighted
benefits were the economies of scale and lead-time reduction and the most exposed difficulties are
increased dependence on suppliers regarding technological knowledge (especially in the
automotive sector) and the change from the traditional supply chain to a modular structure. As
emerging topics, it is highlighted modularity applied to service sector and the study of the
relationships among various (three or more) modularity typologies.
Paper Details
PaperID: p 604-621
Author's Name: Flávio Issao Kubota, Lucila Maria de Souza Campos and Paulo Augusto Cauchick Miguel
Volume: Volume 4
Issues: Volume 4
Keywords: Modularity, modularity typologies, future perspectives, theoretical-conceptual, literature review.
Year: 2014
Month: March
Pages: 604-621