Title: An approach to initiating product design in mass customisation environments

Authors: Wen-Pai Wang

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Chin-Yi Institute of Technology, Taichung, Taiwan 411, ROC

Abstract: Mass Customisation (MC) has been identified as a competitive strategy by an increasing number of companies. The aim of this paper is to propose a systematic approach for successful implementation of MC because the current state-of-the-art literature on MC seems only to highlight the benefits rather than the means. Through the object-oriented system, the Unified Modelling Language (UML) is applied to express Product Family Architecture (PFA) for solving the description problems of product variation. After transforming UML to PFA, a configurational model for classifying mass customisers, based on customer involvement in design and product modularity, is established. A proposed mathematical programming model, depending upon the interdependent relationship of elements, may determine the optimal component combination and part deployment in this research. Moreover, this research extends the application and constructs a possibilistic linear programming model to determine ambiguous decisions under uncertainty. According to the results, production managers may obtain adequate information to make stable supply/demand management decisions.

Keywords: mass customisation; MC; unified modelling language; UML; product family architecture; PFA; possibilitic programming; configuration; product design; object-oriented systems; modular design; product modularity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2007.012997

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2007 Vol.3 No.3, pp.330 - 343

Published online: 03 Apr 2007 *

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