Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing
Special Issue: Call For Papers

   AIEDAM Special Issue, January 2004, Vol.18, No.1

   Platform Product Development for Mass Customization

   Edited by: George Huang, Roger Jiao, and Mitchell Tseng

             A contemporary approach to agile product development for
             mass customization is to derive distinctively different
             products from a single platform. A "platform" is defined
             as component and subsystem assets commonly shared across
             a family of products. Significant benefits have been
             observed in numerous success stories from industrial
             sectors such as airplanes, automobiles, personal
             computers, printers, hand tools, toasters, etc.

             The platform product development approach usually
             includes two main phases. One is the establishment of the
             appropriate product platform and the other is the
             customization of the platform into individual product
             variants to meet the specific market, business and
             engineering needs. The establishment, maintenance and
             application of the right product platform are very
             complex. Several qualitative frameworks have been
             proposed for both phases in platform product
             development. They provide valuable managerial guidelines
             in implementing the platform product development
             approach.  However, there are very few systematic
             quantitative or intelligent methodologies to support the
             product development team members to adopt this platform
             product development practice, despite the progress made
             in several research projects.

             The goal of this special issue is to take a snapshot of
             the progress in the research into the decision support
             systems for platform product development and to
             disseminate how recent developments in computational AI
             techniques (e.g., Knowledge Representation, Heuristic
             Search, Evolutionary Computing, Classification,
             Ontologies, etc.) can improve and enhance such
             support. Researchers are invited to submit papers related
             to, but not limited to, one or more of the areas listed
             below:

                 Product platform development;
                 Product family architecture;
                 Intelligent modeling of products, product platforms,
                     product variants, product families, product
                 portfolios, etc.;
                 Knowledge management in platform product development;
                 Product platform customization;
                 Evolutionary computing in product customization;
                 Measurement of customizability.

             Papers of both theoretical and practical nature are
             welcome. The Guest Editors are also interested in
             authoritative literature review of the state of the art
             and directions for future research in the field.

             All submissions will be first screened by the Guest
             Editors for their relevance to the special issue and then
             anonymously reviewed by at least two reviewers in order
             to ensure quality.

             Further details about this special issue can be found at
             www.digiprise.org/AIEDAM/

             Information about the format and style required for
             AIEDAM papers can be found at
             www.cs.wpi.edu/~aiedam/Instructions/

             Important dates:

                 Title + Abstract:                         As soon as possible
                 Submission of full papers:                31 January 2003
                 Notification and reviews to authors:      30 April 2003
                 Submission of revised manuscripts:        30 June 2003
                 Final notification and re-reviews:        30 July 2003
                 Final submission for production:          15 August 2003
                 Publication:                              January 2004

             Guest editors:

             Dr. George Huang
             Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering,
             The University of Hong Kong,
             Pokfulam Road,
             Hong Kong
             CHINA
             Email: [log in to unmask]
             Tel: (852)28592591
             Fax: (852)28586535

             Dr Roger Jiao
             School of Mechanical and Production Engineering,
             Nanyang Technological University,
             Nanyang Avenue 50,
             SINGAPORE 639798
             Email: [log in to unmask]
             Tel: (65)67904143
             Fax: (65)67911859

             Professor Mitchell Tseng
             Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management,
             Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,
             Clearwater Bay,
             Hong Kong
             CHINA
             EMail: [log in to unmask]
             Tel: (852)23587091
             Fax: (852)23580062



______________________________________________________________________________
Dr David C Brown, Editor, AI EDAM Jnl, CS Dept,            [log in to unmask]
WPI, 100 Institute Rd, Worcester, MA01609, USA    http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~dcb/
Ph: +1(508) 831-5618  FAX: +1(508) 831-5776    http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~aiedam/