Mass Customisation

... and Food Processes Jason Matthews1, Richard McIntosh2 and Glen Mullineux3 ... 1 Dr. Jason Matthews is a senior researcher at the Innovative Design and Manufacturing Re-search Centre in the University of Bath's Department of Mechanical Engineering. ...

The concept of mass customisation is not new yet the UK construction industry has yet to grasp this opportunity to deliver greater value to its customers. The government report Rethinking Construction [Egan 1998] clearly identifies this issue:'We have repeatedly heard the claim that construction is different from manufacturing because every product is unique. We do not agree. Not only are many buildings such as houses, essentially repeat products which can be continually improved but, more importantly, the process of construction is ...

Cellular automata are models that deal with both nature and artefacts: they can indeed simulate living beings as well as be employed in the creation of objects. After the introduction of this concept by Stanislaw Ulam and John Von Neumann in the late 1940s, many different kinds of cellular automata have been created and have become part of what Christopher Langton called " artificial life " in 1986. The most complex examples among them are based on stochastic development, thus they share their structural properties with morphogenetic models like the one suggested by Alan Turing (1952). This is the reason why some cellular automata are capable of simulating the development of living beings , but also of cities and artefacts. They are indeed widely used in computer graphics related to parametric design, in order to create performative objects at various scales that can be produced according to the principle of mass customisation. The purpose of this study is to analyse the properties of these models with the help of computer simulations and, as a consequence, to explore some of their different fields of application. As a result, it can be observed that these processes , based on a stochastic geometry, can lead not only to simple biomimicry (regarded as the artificial replication of biological features) but also, in a wider sense, to bioinspiration (a more general relation between nature and artefacts based on shared structural properties).

We present dimensions for classifying service mass customizers. Our work is based on a conceptual analysis and synthesis of goods mass customization and service classification dimensions found in literature. The dimensions proposed could help service companies striving for mass customization to position their mass customized service offerings related to competitors and to identify management issues they could face.

Les travaux sur la customisation de masse (CM) considèrent qu’elle crée forcément de la valeur pour le consommateur. Les échecs de telles stratégies semblent prouver le contraire. C’est pourquoi l’objectif de cet article est de proposer une réflexion sur la valeur perçue de cette offre. Nous répondons à deux questions de recherche : (1) pourquoi et sur quelles dimensions le consommateur valorise-t-il la CM ? (2) comment et dans quelle mesure ces sources de valorisation influencent-elles la valeur globale perçue d’une telle offre ? Deux composantes de la valeur de la CM sont identifiées : (1) la valeur du produit customisé, reflétée dans trois dimensions : la valeur utilitaire, la valeur de différenciation interpersonnelle et la valeur d’expression de sa personnalité, et (2) la valeur de l’expérience de CM, reflétée dans deux dimensions : la valeur hédonique et la valeur de réalisation créative. Les résultats soulignent que la valeur de l’expérience de co-design influence significativement la valeur globale perçue de la CM, par la médiation de la valeur du produit customisé.

This paper addresses the role of new fabrication techniques, reconsideration of textiles’ relationship to the body, and the role of the designer. It outlines the role of multidisciplinary research which explores the possibilities of generating truly 3-dimensional seamless garments constructed in one piece, using existing Rapid Manufacturing processes such as Laser Sintering to create 3D polymer fabric structures suitable for clothing.
This approach to creating clothing requires a new design and manufacturing paradigm.

Even though mass customization has been a popular topic since the early ’90s, a deeper understanding of service mass customization is missing. What does mass customization mean in the service context? How can services be mass customized? Moreover, what kind of cost system design should be used for mass customized services? Cost system design is always a challenging task, and the new environment does not make it easy. The aim of this paper is to review the literature to find out how services can be mass customized and to give some suggestions as to what kind of cost system design should be used in the case of mass customized services. Causality and responsibility were taken as the most important factors of the relevancy of the cost system. Activity-based costing (ABC) is presented as one way to calculate the costs of mass customized services. Other methods might also be possible. If there are multilevel cost objects, such as activities, services, bundled services, customers, and mark...

The incorporation of tools into New Product Development (NPD) process tends to contribute to the implementation of Mass Customization strategy in companies. Different knowledge areas – such as marketing, design and engineering – offer tools for different stages of product development. The specificity of those tools makes their selection and application to NPD process difficult. This paper aims at carrying out a literature review of applicable tools in respect to the NPD aimed at MC promotion. It also aims at identifying, according to its objective, its localization and application to NPD process. By means of a systematic review, 39 tools for NPD were identified. The results present bibliometrics on the tools, identify four tool clusters according to their contributions to product development, and also identify opportunities for research about the theme.

Subcontractors are critical to the U.S. construction industry. They are used by general contractors (GC) to preform a majority of work. Subcontractors safely install components specified, in the time needed, and at a competitive cost. It appears that some misalignment of Lean Construction (LC) methodologies and realities of managing subcontractors. More research is needed to address this largest input in most projects. Currently, LC suffers from low adoption. Looking ahead to the next 3 years, all contractors plan adoption at the same low rate. This paper will review an action research project and its outcomes which involved a GC and its subcontractors over three years of projects.

Customers want individualized solutions regardless of whether the solutions comprise products, services, or any combination of them. Choice navigation support is a key capability for a company offering such mass customized solutions. We seek to identify modelling concepts for supporting choice navigation. Our findings draw from our case experiences in seven companies and scientific literature. We propose concepts such as bundles, explicit customer needs and characteristics affecting determination of the optimal solution, and high-level service co-creation process. These concepts partly extend physical product configuration conceptual models, providing a good basis for improving choice navigation support for solutions.

The paper aims to analyze the deep relationship occurring between small proactive communities within urban areas and innovative and collaborative means of production. A categorization is finally given to define different types of products that, by being related to the territory’s unique identity, get to be defined as markers, bringers of value.

Abstract: Personalisation permeates our everyday lives. From advertising to healthcare and from clothing to architecture – most services and products can be tailored to suit particular needs and preferences. This paper considers questions including: where does it leave designers when consumers specify their products? Do personalised health services deliver value to the tax-payer? Deriving from a symposium on the topic, it identifes the dimensions of the phenomenon and typologies within it by investigating specific instances of personalised designs, their consequences for users, and for society. The presentations to the symposium will be chapters in ‘Design for Personalisation ’ published by Gower in 2015.

... By Fabrizio Salvador, Pablo Martin de Holan and Frank Piller Fabrizio Salvador is Professor of Operations Management at the Instituto de Empresa Business ... from retailers like Adidas, Best Buy, Levis and Sears. More than 10 million users ...

This article seeks to answer the following question: how do firms adapt their technological innovations in a way that sustains profitable growth in global markets? The context examined is small and medium high-technology firms as they face the challenges of being young firms that must serve global markets with their limited resources. A multi-case exploratory study captures the product and market development processes during two phases of the growth cycle. The comparison of five start-up firms and five growth firms from Quebec City’s photonics cluster (Canada) points to an error frequently made by start-up firms: spending too much time and money creating or adapting products for each initial customer. Growth firms, on the other hand, have built product platforms that respond to basic client needs. The results confirm the strategic role of mass customisation.

Mass Customisation and Open Innovation are two emerging paradigms. Mass Customisation implies high level of variety and thus creativity, stronger and anticipated interactions with the final customers/users as well as an augmented recourse to co-creation and co-design. All these activities ask for fast pace of innovation and a stronger involvement of many different actors, especially the customers, to the innovation process. Thus, it can be expected that the adoption of Open Innovation can be highly beneficial in the Mass Customisation context. An analysis framework has been designed and applied to 35 Open Innovation Accelerators in order to identify trends and best practices to be applied for designing an effective Open Innovation platform for Mass Customisation. In particular, have been investigated the provided contents and services as well as the adopted organisational forms.