Available data within today\'s digitalized product life cycles comprise necessary information and is currently used in an unstructured way without sufficient description of interrelations. One major challenge in managing product complexity is the tradeoff between standardization measures and customized solutions. Therefore, a transparent overview and effective controlling of product-induced complexity is required and could be supported by product-related data analysis. This paper aims at the development of a generic approach for the data-based determination of the complexity degree. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.