Mass Customisation in Sustainable Networked Enterprises

Abstract

Abstract.To cope with the customer-oriented business model in a global competitive market, enterprises tend to be networked for achieving mass customisation: i.e. offering customisable products with the same efficiency as mass production. This scenario highlights two faces of variability: variability of needs (on customer side) and variability of organisations (on production side). Both types of variability induce a huge number of specified products, namely configurations. This configuration variability must be efficiently managed. This position paper discusses trends and issues for rationalising the number of configurations: i.e. engineering the right number of configurations that match both the customer needs and the production strategy. After this positioning, we propose a systemic perspective for addressing the discussed issues from a sustainability point of view. Finally we give a perspective for a product line definition method that leads to models that meet the discussed variability rationalisation.

A Model to Classify Manufacturing Archetypes for Distributed Production

“…In fact, the client is being involved at a higher extent in the value creation process. In order to keep the pace with market changes and adapt to customer taste, companies associate with each other to achieve mass customization [15]. In fact, mass customization is a strategy aimed at satisfying customer needs with price typical for mass production [16].…”

“…In the current turbulent environment firms try to build collaborative networks to cope with these challenges. This form of relationship implies "sharing risks, resources, responsibilities and rewards" [15].…”

A Systemic Perspective for Mass Customization: An Approach to Defining Product Lines

“…Here we propose a method based on definitions of the system, environment, interaction, purpose, and the "black box" coming from cybernetics and system theory (Giovannini et al 2013). Starting from the system's purpose (a predefined air quality), an engineer can identify needed interactions (based on some principles of physics) between the purpose's fulfilment and the system's features (the goal of the configuration process).…”

Consumers' Virtual Product Experiences and Risk Perceptions of Product Performance in the Online Co‐Design Practice: A Case of NIKEiD

“…Mass customization is a business trend in the production and distribution of individually customized goods and services for the mass market (Davis, 1987;De Raeve, Cools, De Smedt, & Bossaer, 2012;Ferguson, Olewnik, & Cormier, 2011;Franke, Schreier, & Kaiser, 2010;Giovannini, Aubry, Panetto, & El Haouzi, 2013). In the context of online shopping, co-design is considered to be a specific form of mass customization that was developed as a novel marketing strategy.…”