• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.175-180
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• 2013

To compete global marketplace, many firms are adopting product families to increase variety, satisfy customer requirements, shorten lead-times and reduce costs. The key to a successful product family is the platform from which it is derived. When designing product families, it is important to resolve the tradeoff between product commonality and distinctiveness. To measure the commonality within a product family, it is necessary to develop the commonality index. It utilizes different parameters such as the number of common components, their cost, their manufacturing processes and so on. This paper present a new product family assessment index using the benchmarking method and considering environmental performance called green product family index(GPFI). Through the comparison analysis between some previous developed commonality indices and GPFI, we verify the suitability and effectiveness. Eventually, the proposed a new green product family assessment index can be helpful to design and develop the environmentally conscious product families.