Modularization Assessment of Product Architecture

Modularization refers to the opportunity for mixing-and-matching of components in a modular product design in which the standard interfaces between components are specified to allow for a range of variation in components to be substituted in a product architecture. It is through mixing-and-matching of these components, and how these components interface with one another, that new systems are created. Consequently, the degree of modularization inherent in a system is highly dependent upon the components and the interface constraints shared among the components, modules, and sub-systems. In this paper, a mathematical model is derived for analyzing the degree of modularization in a given product architecture by taking into consideration the number of components, number of interfaces, the composition of new-to-the-firm (NTF) components, and substitutability of components. An analysis of Chrysler windshield wipers controller suggests that two product architectures may share similar interface constraints, but the opportunity for modularization of one module is significant higher than the other due to the higher substitutability of its components and lower composition of NTF components.Product architecture, modularization, substitutability, new product development

An Approach to Agent-Based Service Composition and Its Application to Mobile

This paper describes an architecture model for multiagent systems that was developed in the European project LEAP (Lightweight Extensible Agent Platform). Its main feature is a set of generic services that are implemented independently of the agents and can be installed into the agents by the application developer in a flexible way. Moreover, two applications using this architecture model are described that were also developed within the LEAP project. The application domain is the support of mobile, virtual teams for the German automobile club ADAC and for British Telecommunications

Variety Management in Assemble-to-Order Supply Chains

Assemble-to-order refers to a supply chain strategy in which products are not assembled until customer order arrives. It is based on the so-called form postponement that is to hold components at a generic form and to delay the point of product differentiation. The performance of an assem-ble-to-order supply chain depends on two main dimensions, which are responsiveness and achievement level of scale economies. Responsiveness refers to the capability of fulfilling customer requirements in a fast-paced manner, whereas the achievement of scale economies reflects the degree of operations efficiency. Assemble-to-order supply chains induce high product variety, which has adverse effects on performance. We use demand volumes as a proxy for scale economies and lead times as a proxy for responsiveness. A matrix that consists of both dimensions can be defined, in which we distinguish between short/long lead times and low/high demand volumes. This matrix is called performance matrix. On the other hand, the consequence that results from product variety is a high demand variability of end products, which also affects the demand variability of components. An analysis of component demand variability enables one to identify the components with low/high demand variability. These components can further be classified into supplied and in-house made components. Thus, a second matrix (called component matrix) with two dimensions, namely variability (low/high) and supply source (in-house/supplier) can be defined. Due to the supply source dimension in the component matrix, the supply chain perspective is also taken into ac-count. The combination of both matrixes into a single one provides the performance/component matrix for assemble-to-order supply chains. To use the final matrix, it is necessary to compute lead times, demand volumes and demand variability of the supplied and in-house made components. By plotting the components in the matrix, one can determine the problems induced by variety. In order to improve the performance of the assemble-to-order supply chain, the implementation of variety management strategies is necessary. The identified strategies are: commonality, component families, modularity, and platforms. Based on the performance/component matrix, we discuss how these strategies or a combination of them can contribute to derive recommendations that aim to alleviate variety impacts on the as-semble-to-order supply chain.Assemble-to-order; Supply Chain Management; Variety Management

A coordination protocol for user-customisable cloud policy monitoring

Cloud computing will see a increasing demand for end-user customisation and personalisation of multi-tenant cloud service offerings. Combined with an identified need to address QoS and governance aspects in cloud computing, a need to provide user-customised QoS and governance policy management and monitoring as part of an SLA management infrastructure for clouds arises. We propose a user-customisable policy definition solution that can be enforced in multi-tenant cloud offerings through an automated instrumentation and monitoring technique. We in particular allow service processes that are run by cloud and SaaS providers to be made policy-aware in a transparent way

Architecture-Driven Semantic Analysis of Embedded Systems (Eds) Dagstuhl Seminar 12272

Architectural modeling of complex embedded systems is gaining prominence in recent years, both in academia and in industry. An architectural model represents components in a distributed system as boxes with well-defined interfaces, connections between ports on component interfaces, and specifies component properties that can be used in analytical reasoning about the model. Models are hierarchically organized, so that each box can contain another system inside, with its own set of boxes and connections between them. The goal of Dagstuhl Seminar 12272 “Architecture-Driven Semantic Analysis of Embedded Systems” is to bring together researchers who are interested in defining precise semantics of an architecture description language and using it for building tools that generate analytical models from architectural ones, as well as generate code and configuration scripts for the system. This report documents the program and the outcomes of the presentations and working groups held during the seminar

Flexible coordination techniques for dynamic cloud service collaboration

The provision of individual, but also composed services is central in cloud service provisioning. We describe a framework for the coordination of cloud services, based on a tuple‐space architecture which uses an ontology to describe the services. Current techniques for service collaboration offer limited scope for flexibility. They are based on statically describing and compositing services. With the open nature of the web and cloud services, the need for a more flexible, dynamic approach to service coordination becomes evident. In order to support open communities of service providers, there should be the option for these providers to offer and withdraw their services to/from the community. For this to be realised, there needs to be a degree of self‐organisation. Our techniques for coordination and service matching aim to achieve this through matching goal‐oriented service requests with providers that advertise their offerings dynamically. Scalability of the solution is a particular concern that will be evaluated in detail