Special Issue Authors: H.J. Thevenot, T.W. Simpson, R.J. Jiao and P. Kenger

Product family design and platform-based product development have attracted much attention from academia and industry alike in the past decade. While the underlying drivers for providing variety at low cost have been well established, marketplace globalisation is transforming the way that many companies design, develop, and deploy new products. Many companies must now consider a wider range of customer needs than ever before. Off-shore manufacturing has reduced labour and tooling costs to such a small percentage of total development costs that many companies can produce a profitable variety of products without having to share physical components or relying on a product platform.