International Journal of Industrial Engineering & Production Management

  Abstract: This paper illustrates how common platform (CP) strategy can contribute to the effectiveness of the supply chain through commonality. Through reviewing the related literature and the practical data, which are collected through observations in manufacturing, a mathematical model is set up. This model was developed for reducing cost of part commonality in SCM and solved it by simulated annealing approach. Through applying this concept, chain members can reduce manufacturing variability, i.e. the variety of parts, materials, components, etc, and thereby enable companies to increase value by producing a variety of products. One can say that the logics of applying CP and commonality in manufacturing area is, to simplify the offering and processing of products in order to reduce the parts variety. This will be accomplished through standardizing components and resource sharing strategies, and will result in the costs and time reduction, and other non value added factors. This work is one of the first to present SCM based on CP concept for supporting decision makers. The main research questions include: 1) Why CP in SCM to be applied? 2) Which combination of commonality is suitable for reduce part and component variety, 3) how much cost saving obtain, and how can we contribute to its application.