An integrated module partition approach for complex products and systems based on weighted complex networks

Abstract

The modularisation strategy can dramatically shorten the lead time and reduce the cost of complex products and systems (CoPS) development. Module partition is the basis of the modularisation. Because of the high technical content and multi-dimensional complexity of CoPS, the existing module partition approach cannot identify the module of CoPS effectively and efficiently. The complex network is introduced to visually represent the CoPS as their topological structures are very similar. The weights of the edges in the weighted complex network (WCN) are brought to illustrate the correlation strengths among components. An integrated approach is proposed in this article by modelling the CoPS module partition problem as the community detection problem of WCN. Firstly, the CoPS component-WCN is constructed and transformed to a multi-graph. Secondly, the modified GN algorithm is adopted to establish the community detection, namely module partition of CoPS. Finally, a module partition case example of a large tonnage crawler crane expounds that the proposed approach is effective and systematic to solve the CoPS module partition problem.

Keywords:

• CoPS module partition
• weighted complex networks
• product life cycle issue
• community detection
• modified GN algorithm

Acknowledgements

The authors express sincere appreciation to the anonymous referees for their helpful comments to improve the quality of this article.

Funding

Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Action Plan [grant number 12dz1125600, 11DZ1120800]; National Natural Science Foundation, China [grant number 51075261, 51205242, 71301104]. Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China [grant number 20120073110096, 20133120120002].