This paper describes a modeling framework for product design thatfacilitates the incorporation of both engineering and strategicconsiderations at the design stage. We first develop an abstractrepresentation of a generic product, an AND/OR tree, that iscontext-independent and can be used to model a wide variety of products indifferent application settings. We show how this representation leadsnaturally to a mathematical model and discuss some of the properties ofthis model. Next, we show how the AND/OR tree can be employed indifferent settings; specifically, we describe applications to printedcircuit assembly and microwave module industries. These applicationsresult in multiobjective integer programming formulations.We discuss theproperties of these formulations, develop appropriate solution procedures,and report our computational experience. One of the advantages of theframework that we describe is the ease with which it can be extended toincorporate additional considerations. We indicate some some possibleextensions that might find ready applicability in industry
