Component part standardisation: An analysis of commonality sources and indices

The importance of higher component part standardization has been recognized as an important area of empirical investigation since it has been hypothesized to reduce inventory levels by reducing safety requirements, to reduce planned load through larger lot sizes, and to reduce planning complexity through reducing number of items to be planned. Therefore, component part standardization offers considerable promise for managers wishing to improve their production capabilities. In order to achieve higher standardization, measures indicating the degree of standardization are necessary. The most traditional measure of component part standardization is the degree of commonality index (DCI), which indicates the average number of uses per component parts. This article develops these two types of indices to indicate the relative proliferation of new component parts.