The architectural attributes of components and the transaction patterns of detail design drawings: a case study on China's motorcycle industry

摘要

During the reverse engineering-based product development process prevalent in China's motorcycle industry, diverse patterns for the same components have been observed in the dyadic transactions of the same components between an individual assembler A and its supplier. The explanation of this phenomenon makes us turn to the perspective of product architecture. We propose that the architectural attributes of the components differ under the alternative transaction patterns - Drawing-supplied system, Drawing-approved system and Purchased parts system. When various patterns are present for the transactions of same components, this correlation reveals the architectural competition between two reverse engineering-based product development strategies - the assembler-led top-down one and the supplier-led bottom-up one that is defined as 'localised modularisation'.