A multi-criteria approach to assess the impact of regulations and voluntary programs on product architecture

Figures & data

Table 1. Regulated appliances in different countries*

Appliance/Country	USA	EU	China	Canada	Australia	Russia
Central Air Conditioners	✓		✓	✓	✓
Water Heaters	✓			✓	✓	✓
Refrigerators	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Washing Machines	✓		✓	✓

* Source: Nadel (2002)

Table 2. Years of effective new regulations in the U.S. for some appliances*

Appliance/Year	‘88	‘90	‘92	‘93	‘94	‘00	‘01	‘04	‘06	‘07
Central Air Conditioners			✓						✓
Water Heaters		✓						✓
Refrigerators		✓		✓			✓
Washing Machines	✓				✓			✓		✓

* Source: Nadel (2002)

Table 3. Factors and sub-factors affecting product architecture

Factors	Sub-factors	Literature
Generic	Components	Ulrich, 1995,
	Interfaces	Schilling, 2000,
	Degree of Coupling	J.H. Mikkola, 2003,
	Substitutability	J. Mikkola, 2006,
		Simchi-Levi, 2010
Economic	Economies of scale (market size)	Ulrich, 1995,
	Economies of Scope (Product Variety,	Pashaei & Olhager, 2017
	Market segments)
	Unit cost
	Durability of the product
Technical	Performance	Ulrich, 1995,
	Product Upgrades (Product Change)	Sommer & Iyer, 2007,
	Key technologies	Lowenberger et al., 2012,
	Size of the product	Mauer et al., 2013
	Weight of the product
	Output power level (e.g. lighting power, cooling power)
	Noise
Supply chain	Number of key suppliers	Lee & Sasser, 1995,
Characteristics	Number of capable plants	Takeishi & Fujimoto, 2001,
And design	Suppliers capabilities	Fixson, 2005,
	Assembly plant focus	Howard & Squire, 2007,
	Component plant focus	Ülkü & Schmidt, 2011,
	Distance between key suppliers and	Simchi-Levi, 2010,
	Component plants	Pashaei & Olhager, 2017
	Distance between assembly plants and
	Markets
Environmental	Intensity of regulation demands	Nadel, 2002,
Regulation	Frequency of regulation rules	Porter & Kramer, 2006,
Characteristics	Materials change requests	Sommer & Iyer, 2007,
		Lowenberger et al., 2012
		Simchi-Levi, 2010
Other	Organizational Structure	Sosa et al., 2004
	Ease of replicability (imitability)

Table 4. Saaty scale for pairwise comparison matrix

= 1	if two criteria are equally important
= 3	if one criterion is moderately more important then the other
= 5	if strongly more important
= 7	if very strongly more important
= 9	if extremely more important
= 2,4,6,8	when a compromise between the above values is needed
	for all and = 1,2,.,

Figure 1. Outline of the proposed methodology

Table 5. Factors and sub-factors for the air conditioners example with acronyms

Level 1		Level 2
Environmental	Intensity	Frequency	Refrigerant	-
(ENV)	(INTN)	(FREQ)	Change (REF)
Economic	Economies of	Economies of	Durability	Unit Cost
(ECON)	Scope (SCP)	Scale (SCL)	(DUR)	(COST)
Technical	Cooling Power	Noise Level	Size (SIZE)	Weight
(TECH)	(PWR)	(NSE)		(WGHT)

Figure 2. AHP hierarchy for air conditioners

Table 6. Pairwise comparison matrix for criteria

CRITERIA	ENV	ECON	TECH
ENV	1	1	1
ECON	1	1	1
TECH	1	1	1

Table 7. PWC matrix for technical factors

TECH	PWR	NSE	SIZE	WGHT
PWR	1	2	1/3	½
NSE	½	1	1/6	¼
SIZE	3	6	1	3
WGHT	2	4	1/3	1

Table 8. PWC matrix for alternatives considering Refrigerant Change

REF	HM	MM	INTG	.
HM	1	2	6
MM	½	1	3
INTG	1/6	1/3	1

Table

Integral Architecture	37%
Highly Modular	34%
Moderately Modular	29%

Table 9. Overall priority scores for product architectures

Architecture	Overall Weight
Highly Modular	34%
Moderately Modular	29%
Integral	37%

Table 10. Updated PWC matrix – scenario 1

ENV	INTN	FREQ	REF
INTN	1	2	4
FREQ	½	1	2
REF	¼	½	1

Table 11. Overall priority scores – scenario 1

Architecture	Overall Weight
Highly Modular	31%
Moderately Modular	29%
Integral	39%

Table 12. Updated PWC matrix – scenario 2

CRITERIA	ENV	ECON	TECH
ENV	1	½	½
ECON	2	1	1
TECH	2	1	1

Table 13. Overall priority scores – scenario 2

Architecture		Overall Weight
Highly Modular		33%
Moderately Modular		29%
Integral		38%

Table 14. Updated PWC matrix – scenario 3

ECON	SCP	SCL	DUR	COST
SCP	1	6	9	1
SCL	1/6	1	3	1/6
DUR	1/9	1/3	1	1/9
COST	1	6	9	1

Table 15. Overall priority scores – scenario 3

Architecture	Overall Weight
Highly Modular	35%
Moderately Modular	30%
Integral	35%

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