Developing Flexible Modules  A Pragmatic Way to Organize and Reuse Engineering Assets A common cause for delays in product development is a premature introduction of new technologies. This can be the case also when organizations have failed to use the existing knowledge of technologies and other engineering assets. One way to increase the reuse of existing engineering assets is to ensure that these assets are relevant, retrievable and renewed. This can be achieved by applying Flexible Modularization as a structured way to organize and reuse engineering assets. This paper presents the introduction of Flexible Modularization at two international product developing and manufacturing companies. It presents three different examples of Flexible Modules and a guideline for developing Flexible Modules in an industrial context.

Adapted Design for Variety: Consideration of the SoftwareDomain Many companies are expanding their product program in response to current megatrends. In many cases, this leads to an increase in complexity within the company. One way of counteracting this is to develop varietyoriented product structures. However, existing methods do not consider the fact that in many products the functionalities are realized by physical components andor software. This paper presents an adaptation of the Design for Variety Method (DfV) of the integrated PKTapproach is presented that permits considering the software domain while using the method. The necessary adaptations are presented for each step of the method. It concludes with an outlook on further possible research topics.