Platform-based product family design is recognized as an effective method to satisfy the mass customization which is a current market trend. In order to design platform-based product family successfully, it is the key work to define a good product platform, which is to identify the common modules that will be shared among the product family. In this paper the clustering analysis using dendrogram is proposed to capture the common modules of the platform. The clustering variables regarding both marketing and engineering sides are derived from the view point of top-down product development. A case study of a cordless drill/drive product family is presented to illustrate the feasibility and validity of the overall procedure developed in this research.