ABSTRACT
The necessity to introduce and manage product lines is not at all new to the automotive industry. The complexity of the initial automotive product lines was predominantly driven by mechanical variation, that is, to maximize the reuse of common mechanical parts across the entire product range. Any reduction in the number of mechanical 7_2variants would not only reduce development and production cost, but also the cost of the after-sales phase of the automotive life cycle, by reducing the amount of spare part types, and by simplifying diagnosis and repair.
