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Modularity has been defined at the product and system levels. However, little effort has gone into defining and quantifying modularity at the component level. We consider complex products as a network of components that share technical interfaces (or connections) in order to function as a whole and define component modularity based on the lack of connectivity among them. Building upon previous work in graph theory and social network analysis, we define three measures of component modularity based on the notion of centrality. Our measures consider how components share direct interfaces with adjacent components, how design interfaces may propagate to nonadjacent components in the product, and how components may act as bridges among other components through their interfaces. We calculate and interpret all three measures of component modularity by studying the product architecture of a large …