Managing product variety: a case study on an industrial company

This article describes the development of a framework that supports the decision-making process associated with product portfolio management. By implementing this framework, product managers are better able to make decisions about which products to include or remove from their portfolio. This framework was developed through an action research project in collaboration with a company where the number of references has grown steeply in recent years. A detailed analysis of the current portfolio was conducted, leading to recommendation to remove / discontinue from the product portfolio 21.5% of the references of the family of products that was selected for analysis. An additional process flow was suggested to prevent the inclusion of unnecessary products in the portfolio. (C) 2018, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.