Int. J. Mass Customisation, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2005 65 Copyright © 2005 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Modular platform design using mechanical bus architectures Matthew A. Slevinsky and Peihua Gu* Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada E-mail: maslevin@ucalgary.ca E-mail: gu@enme.ucalgary.ca *Corresponding author Abstract: Modular products consist of detachable modules that can be manufactured, assembled, and serviced separately and may be reusable, recyclable, or remanufacturable upon product retirement. Platform-based products exploit commonalities between different products, often using modules to achieve these goals. In such products, the connections between modules must be designed to facilitate operations for parallel manufacturing, assembly as well as post product life activities. This paper presents the Mechanical Bus (MechBus) as a new concept for facilitating platform based product design. Core characteristics and features of platforms have been identified, and the Mechanical Bus design method has been chosen as a means of achieving these goals. A design method, with a supporting software implementation, for product platform design using Mechanical Buses has also been developed. Examples and a case study will be included to illustrate the Mechanical Bus and modular platform product design method. Keywords: modular design; product platforms; mechanical bus. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Slevinsky, M.A. and Gu, P. (2005) ‘Modular platform design using mechanical bus architectures’, Int. J. Mass Customisation, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.65–82. Biographical notes: Matt Slevinsky is currently Lead Developer of Client Team at AirG, a company in Vancouver, Canada. He received his MSc and BSc from the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. He has published his research work in the Annals of CIRP and Proceedings of CSME Design Conference. His research interests include software system development, computational algorithms and product development. Peihua Gu is Professor and Head of the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, and holds NSERC Chair in Life Cycle Design Engineering at the University of Calgary. His current research interests include adaptable design, fabrication of objects with locally controlled properties and free-form surface inspection and comparison. He has been working in the field of manufacturing for 24 years as academic and practitioner. He is an author and co-author of 160 technical papers. He is an elected Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering and elected Active Member of CIRP.