Product Designers | QualiWare Center of Excellence

Product Variant Master

Purpose: The purpose of the Product Variant Master template is to provide an overall view of a product’s variants and can be modelled from the viewpoints of the Customer, Engineer, Part, or Production.

Core concerns: The Product Variant Master template enables you to model product variants by mapping their parts and part variants. The template includes the following objects: Product, Product Rule, Product Attribute, External Document and General Concept. These objects can then be connected as being Part of Product, Kind of Product, or by a “View Connection”.

The abstraction level that defines whether the model is from the viewpoint of the Customer, Engineer, Part or Production is chosen in the model’s property window.

The model below is a Product Variant Master of a balcony:

Relation to other templates: The Product Variant Master is a decomposition of a Product. As such it is related to the Product Canvas and Product Architecture. It can contain a Product Rule Table and could also be linked to from a Product Roadmap.

Properties and metadata: The Product Variant Master can for example retain the following information:

A description of the model
Choice of the Kind of Notations Graphics
Choice of Abstraction Level
Audits (auto generated information regarding its current state and access rights)
Associated documents, diagrams and other objects
Inherent Risk detailing risk considerations
Governance information detailing information about the published diagram and who has been involved in the approval of the diagram

The above picture shows the properties dialogue window for the Product Variant Master where you can view and edit the diagram’s properties in QualiWare Lifecycle Manager.

For more information: You can learn more about the Product Variant Master model by reading the following article (page 1-7):

Mortensen, Niels Henrik; Hvam, Lars; Haug, Anders: Modelling Product Families for Product Configuration Systems with Product Variant Master. (p. 1-7) In: Wotawa, Franz & Pill, Ingo. (2010). On Classification and Modeling Issues in Distributed Model-based Diagnosis.

Product Rule Table

Purpose: The purpose of the Product Rule Table template is to document the rules pertaining to a specific product.

Core concerns: The Product Rule Table is used as an auxiliary template and functions like a matrix that contains Product Rules.

Below, you can see an example of a Product Rule Table for a balcony:

Relation to other templates: The Product Rule Table is related to templates such as Manufacturing Routing Network, Product Architecture, and Product Variant Master.

Properties and metadata: The Product Rule Table can for example retain the following information:

A description of the table
Audits (auto generated information regarding its current state and access rights)
Matrix Behavior

The above picture shows the properties dialogue window for the Product Rule Table where you can view and edit the diagram’s properties in QualiWare Lifecycle Manager.

Product Roadmap

Purpose: The purpose of the Product Roadmap is to visualize the lifecycles of the projects, within a specific scope and timeframe, in your product portfolio.

Core concerns: The Product Roadmap template enables you to model Products, Markets, Projects and Personae within a Timeframe. Additionally, you can add objects representing Equipment and Work Centers. This allows you to map the lifecycle of product releases within different markets for different customer segments.

Below, you can see two examples of Product Roadmaps. The first showing the timeframe and markets for the release of different apps with multiple versions:

The second figure spans over several years to provide a high-level view of a products expected lifecycle spanning over several projects. It also illustrates how you can model markets with multiple customer segments, in this case based on gender:

Relation to other templates: The Product Roadmap Template is inherently related to the Product Architecture, Product Canvas and Product Variant Master, in the sense that all these models focus on different aspects of the lifecycle of a product. Another view on projects and initiatives are provided from the Enterprise Investment Portfolio. There, the reasoning behind the investment in the project is visualized by connecting the initiative (in this case a new product) to the specific goals of the enterprise that it contributes to.

Properties and metadata: The Product Roadmap can for example retain the following information:

A description of the diagram
Link to the owner of the model
Link to the one responsible for the model
Audits (auto generated information regarding its current state and access rights)
Associated documents, diagrams and other objects
Inherent Risk detailing risk considerations
Governance information detailing information about the published diagram and who has been involved in the approval of the diagram

The above picture shows the properties dialogue window for the Product Roadmap where you can view and edit the diagram’s properties in QualiWare Lifecycle Manager.

Product Canvas

Purpose: The purpose of the Product Canvas template is to present the relevant information related to a specific product.

Core concerns: The Product Canvas template enables you to gather relevant Business Charts and model Personae, Product Demands, Markets, Locations and Products. Additionally, you can model a SWOT analysis that details the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats the product is affected by.

Below, you can see two Product Canvases. The first has its focus on a product within two markets, showing the expectations two different customer segments have to the product.

The second example shows information related to a specific market, Poland, including product architecture and business assessment:

Relation to other templates:

The Product Canvas Template is inherently related to the Product Architecture, Product Roadmap and Product Variant Master, in the sense that all these models focus on different aspects of the lifecycle of a product. Furthermore, you can create additional Business Charts for the Product Canvas by using the dedicated template. Another view on projects and initiatives are provided from the Enterprise Investment Portfolio. There, the reasoning behind the investment in the project is visualized by connecting the initiative (in this case a new product) to the specific goals of the enterprise that it contributes to. Another view on how the product meets customer needs can be documented in the Value Proposition Canvas.

Properties and metadata: The Product Canvas can for example retain the following information:

A description of the diagram
Link to the owner of the canvas
Link to the one responsible for the canvas
Audits (auto generated information regarding its current state and access rights)
Associated documents, diagrams and other objects
Inherent Risk detailing risk considerations
Governance information detailing information about the published diagram and who has been involved in the approval of the diagram

The above picture shows the properties dialogue window for the Product Canvas where you can view and edit the diagram’s properties in QualiWare Lifecycle Manager.

Product Architecture

Purpose: The purpose of the Product Architecture template is to document the building blocks of a product. Below is an example of a product architecture:

Core concerns: The Product Architecture template enables you to model a Product and connect different parts of it with three different connection types: Part of Product, Kind of Product, and Product Interface. See below for an example of a Product Architecture where each Product object is represented graphically:

Relation to other templates: Depending on whether the product is in production or in its development phase, it could be further described in a Product Viewpoint template, have a Product Variant Master, Product Rule Table or be represented in a Product Canvas. It may also be illustrated along with other products in a Product Roadmap, just as its production may be detailed in a Manufacturing Routing Network.

Properties and metadata: The Product Architecture can for example retain the following information:

A description of the diagram
Link to the owner of the diagram
Link to the one responsible for the accuracy of the diagram
Audits (auto generated information regarding its current state and access rights)
Associated documents, diagrams and other objects
Inherent Risk detailing risk considerations
Governance information detailing information about the published diagram and who has been involved in the approval of the diagram
Project status: information about budgeted and actual man-hours spent, percentage completed and the latest milestone, result and quality control of a change process.

In the picture below you can see the Product Architecture’s properties dialogue window, where the properties can be viewed and edited: