Case study for product family replacement strategies based on dynamic programming

A case study of water dispensers is reported to explain a systematic methodology based on dynamics programming (DP), which is proposed to plan the launch timing of new modules that will replace the existing modules of an evolving product family (PF) architecture. The DP-based methodology proposed breaks up the PF module launch planning optimization problem into smaller DP optimization problems involving module groups based on the independence assumption of profit change due to module replacement strategies. The aggregation concepts of independent module groups and module clusters are used to decrease the state space and the calculation space in the DP model. The proposed methodology seeks to maximize the total profit of a PF for a given planning horizon by taking into account the interdependencies of modules at both the product level and the PF level. The case study of water dispensers PF demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.