Design by Customers for Mass Customization Products

Abstract

Producing what customers need with near mass production efficiency, or Mass Customization, has become a major trend in industry. Effective definition of customer requirements is a pre-requisite for realizing mass customization. We propose “Design by Customers” as an approach for companies to communicate to customers about what the company can offer, to find out customer needs, to assist customers in making choices and to negotiate for agreements. In this paper, the design and manufacturing capabilities of a company are represented in a Product Family Architecture. Adaptive Conjoint Analysis is then applied to help customers assert their needs, define variations from base products, visualize their options and assess alternatives.