The Age of Mudularity: Using the New World of Modular Products to Revolutionize Your Corporation

The new world of global competition is one where technological capabilities multiply at a relentless speed, where customers have escalating demands and where products are becoming increasingly complex. In this rapidly changing environment, the old paradigms of monolith products and mass production no longer work. Instead, in this perceptive analysis, Dr. Peter O'Grady shows how the new paradigm of modularity is being rapidly adopted by advanced companies. As The Age of Modularity shows, modularity has given a significant competitive edge to leading companies such as Microsoft, Boeing, Chrysler, Fidelity Investments, 3Com, Motorola, Swatch, Nippondenso, Ford, Conti Tires, Northern Telecom, and Sun Microsystems.

In The Age of Modularity, Dr. O'Grady gives an in-depth description of modularity and shows how companies can use modularity to improve their competitiveness in the face of a constantly changing and complex world. Modularity, as Dr. O'Grady explains, involves the assembly of products from a set of modules. A company can radically improve their competitiveness by using modularity to give a much greater product variety while simultaneously slashing product development times, costs and capital requirements. Modularity also allows design tasks to be segmented, meaning that product evolution can be an order of magnitude faster.

Dr. O'Grady clearly describes the basis of modularity for all products -- hard, soft and mixed -- using a single framework. The development of the framework allows modularity to be contemplated in industries as diverse as automobiles, software, financial services and electronics.

The Age of Modularity is a groundbreaking work and is the first book to describe the main principles behind modularity. It is essential reading for all those concerned with the future competitiveness of their corporation.

Peter OGrady is Professor and Chair of Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Iowa.