Mass Customization Practices Research Articles

Synergies between Mass Customisation and Construction 4.0 Technologies

A challenge faced by some companies in the residential building sector is to cope with the complexity introduced to respond to the increasing diversity of customer demands in a profitable and sustainable way. Mass customisation (MC) has been described as a strategy to deliver customised products at costs and delivery times similar to mass production. The implementation of this strategy can be supported by several information and communication technologies emerging in the Industry 4.0 paradigm, which has been named Construction 4.0 in the construction industry. The aim of this research work is to identify the synergistic potential between Construction 4.0 technologies and the implementation of MC practices in the construction sector. A decision matrix associating a set of MC practices and C4.0 technologies has been devised based on a literature review. Specialists assessed the relationships between items, and the Jaccard similarity index was calculated to understand which Construction 4.0 technologies should be jointly implemented to support MC strategies. As a secondary contribution, this study has also proposed a method to guide companies in the identification of technologies that can support the implementation of MC in specific contexts.

Advances in Adaptive Scheduling in Industry 4.0

The shift of traditional mass-producing industries towards mass customisation practices is nowadays evident. However, if not implemented properly, mass customisation can lead to disturbances in material flow and severe reduction in productivity. Moreover, manufacturing enterprises often face the challenge of manufacturing highly customized products in small lot sizes. One solution to adapt to the ever-changing demands, which increases resource flexibility, lies in the digitization of the manufacturing systems. Furthermore, the distributed manufacturing environment and the ever-increasing product variety and complexity result in reduced time-to market, ubiquitous data access and sharing and adaptability and responsiveness to changes. These requirements can be achieved through smart manufacturing tools and especially Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). Thus, the aim of this position paper is to summarize the design and development of solutions based on cutting-edge technologies such as Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Simulation, 5G, and so on. Concretely, the first part discusses the development of a Cloud-based production planning and control system for discrete manufacturing environments. The proposed approach takes into consideration capacity constraints, lot sizing and priority control in a “bucket-less” manufacturing environment. Then, an open and interoperable Internet of Things platform is discussed, which is enhanced by innovative tools and methods that transform them into Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), supporting smart customized shopping, through gathering customers’ requirements, adaptive production, and logistics of vending machines replenishment and Internet of Things and Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart Manufacturing. To that end, all the proposed methodologies are validated using data derived from Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine building industry, from European Metal-cutting and mold-making SMEs, from white goods industry and SMEs that produces solar panels.

Self-design fun: Should 3D printing be employed in mass customization operations?

Today, in the market with ever-changing consumer preferences, three-dimensional (3D) printing is becoming an overwhelming trend. In this paper, we explore the use of 3D printing in mass customization (MC) programs. We consider the case when 3D printing brings extra self-design fun to consumers, which is highlighted in MC practices of the auto company BMW and the furniture company Poltrona Frau, and also changes the cost formula (i.e., the marginal product variety cost) of the MC product. In addition, the roles played by the risk attitudes of the MC manufacturer and consumers, consumer returns, as well as consumers’ time sensitive behaviors, are also uncovered. We find that under the case with a low consumer's willingness to pay for the traditional “ready-made product variety enjoyment” (RPVE), even the maximized product variety level and the additional self-design fun cannot make the 3D printing based MC more profitable. In addition, compared to the markets with risk-averse and risk-neutral consumers, the 3D printing based MC can increase more MRBs and a higher consumer surplus by simultaneously highlighting the high self-design fun and the high RPVE in a market with risk-seeking consumers. The high flexibility and responsiveness of 3D printing also shows its advantages in remanufacturing the consumer returned MC items and enhancing MC programs’ overall lead-time. Finally, applying 3D printing in creating molds can also help the MC manufacturer tackle demand uncertainties. These findings all provide a good reference to the application of 3D printing in MC operations.

A Customer Integration Framework for the Development of Mass Customised Housing Projects

Mass customisation is a business strategy that aims to deliver a variety of products that fulfil customer requirements and, at the same time, keep price and delivery time within acceptable limits. It has been adopted in different sectors to increase value generation, including house building. A major challenge in mass customisation is customer integration, i.e., how to improve value generation by understanding and considering requirements from different customers, and defining their involvement in product development. Most studies on this topic tend to be technology-focused, often being limited to methods and digital tools to generate and display product alternatives. The aim of this paper is to propose a framework of decision categories for customer integration and for devising the scope of customisation to support the definition of mass customisation (MC) strategies. Design science research was the methodological approach adopted in this investigation. It was based on a literature review about mass customisation practices and also on an empirical study developed in a residential building company from Brazil. The main contribution of this paper is a framework for customer integration, which contains a set of decision categories related to the definition of the scope of customisation and customer integration, and a list of practices that are applicable to house building. A secondary contribution of this investigation is a set of constructs that have been used to describe the decision categories and their relationships.

On the Design Complexity of Cyberphysical Production Systems

Establishing mass-customization practices, in a sustainable way, at a time of increased market uncertainty, is a pressing challenge for modern producing companies and one that traditional automation solutions cannot cope with. Industry 4.0 seeks to mitigate current practice’s limitations. It promotes a vision of a fully interconnected ecosystem of systems, machines, products, and many different stakeholders. In this environment, dynamically interconnected autonomous systems support humans in multifaceted decision-making. Industrial Internet of Things and cyberphysical systems (CPSs) are just two of the emerging concepts that embody the design and behavioral principles of these highly complex technical systems. The research within multiagent systems in manufacturing, by embodying most of the defining principles of industrial CPSs (ICPSs), is often regarded as a precursor for many of today’s emerging ICPS architectures. However, the domain has been fuzzy in specifying clear-cut design objectives and rules. Designs have been proposed with different positioning, creating confusion in concepts and supporting technologies. This paper contributes by providing clear definitions and interpretations of the main functional traits spread across the literature. A characterization of the defining functional requirements of ICPSs follows, in the form of a scale, rating systems according to the degree of implementation of the different functions.

Relationships between advanced manufacturing technologies, absorptive capacity, mass customization, time to market and financial and market performance

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to empirically investigate the relationships between advanced manufacturing technology (AMT), absorptive capacity, mass customization (MC) capability, competitive advantage, and organizational performance measures.Design/methodology/approachBased on a literature review, a theoretical framework is derived. Structural equation modeling was chosen for the empirical analysis based on the focus of the research. Data collection was conducted from 232 Indian manufacturing managers.FindingsThe findings indicate that absorptive capacity has a positive impact on MC capability. Also, MC capability mediated the relationship between AMT and the financial and market performance. Furthermore, AMT positively impacted MC capability, and MC capability positively impacted both time to market and financial and market performance. AMT was not found to have a significant impact on financial and market performance.Originality/valueThe current study is meaningful and unique in that no study has investigated the linkages between AMT, absorptive capacity, MC capability and organization performance and competitive advantage measures in a unified context. Such investigations are important because the results will encourage managers to invest in developing these mechanisms, which in turn will influence firm’s ability to implement MC practices and yield benefits such as improved performance and competitive advantage.

Impact of mass customization on cost and flexiblity performances: the role of social capital

More than ever, companies have to cope with ever changing market conditions. Some companies have reacted to shortened product life cycles, constant changes in customer preferences and cost pressures by implementing mass customization practices. Mass customization has been hailed as a way to overcome the tradeoff between cost and flexibility performance. However, there is lack of consistent empirical evidence to demonstrate that this really is the case. We advance this debate by proposing that in order for mass customization to be more effective, a company needs to possess and utilize social capital (i.e., cognitive, relational and structured social capital) within their supply networks. This study uses primary survey data from 513 plants from nine countries collected by the Global Manufacturing Research Group (GMRG). We used structural equation modelling analysis to test our hypotheses. Results indicate that mass customization has the ability to improve a company’s cost and flexibility performance. Furthermore, results regarding the moderating role of social capital are mixed. Cognitive capital only moderates the impact of mass customization on cost performance while relational capital increases this impact on both cost and flexibility performance. Structural capital does not moderate the impact of mass customization on performance.

Mass customisation systems: complementarities and performance consequences

Mass customisation (MC) is considered to be an important competitive tool to increase the performance of manufacturers. Due to the importance of MC as part of the manufacturing process, there is an increasing amount of research devoted to exploring the nature of MC and how to effectively implement MC processes. Based on the theory of complementary assets, this study investigates the relationships between different MC practices and the effects of these practices on the firm's financial performance. In this study, simultaneous equation modelling and hierarchical regression analysis are applied to data collected from a large-scale survey in China. The results show that different MC practices positively affect each other, and that the interactions between the MC practices positively influence a firm's financial performance. This indicates that the complementary adoption of MC practices is important for a firm's success, requiring the simultaneous deployment of elicitation, process-flexible technology and logistics practices.

Cloud-based Integrated Shop-floor Planning and Control of Manufacturing Operations for Mass Customisation

The shift of traditional mass producing industries towards mass customisation practices is nowadays evident. However, if not implemented properly, mass customisation can lead to disturbances in material flow and severe reduction in productivity. This paper discusses the design and development of a Cloud-based production planning and control system for discrete manufacturing environments, referred to as i-MRP. The proposed approach takes into consideration capacity constraints, lot sizing and priority control in a ‘bucket-less’ manufacturing environment. The i-MRP system offers simultaneous shop scheduling and material planning, where material and capacity constraints are considered together in a continuous time environment. A number of feasible alternative shop schedules and material plan combinations are formed and are evaluated on the Cloud platform where the i-MRP engine is hosted. The Cloud platform enables mobility, since it is device and location independent, as well as it minimises the cost of IT infrastructure ownership, which is especially important for SMEs. The performance of the i-MRP system has been studied in an SME from the textile sector, using real production data. The system demonstrates high performance in cases of short production times, high value inventory and frequent, small deliveries by suppliers. The i-MRP can be easily integrated with legacy IT systems as an interfaced functional module under the Software as a Service (SaaS) architecture.

Mobile apps for product customisation and design of manufacturing networks

Abstract Manufacturing enters a new era, where companies, exploiting mass customisation practices, base their business on mobility and customer integration in product design. These two utterly important activities can be supported by applications deployed on mobile devices, namely apps. However, apps in the manufacturing domain have yet to be widely adopted. Towards that end, the proposed work focuses on the integration of the customer in product personalisation, and aims to support the design of manufacturing networks on the move, through the development of apps for Android devices. The applicability of the developed mobile apps in an automotive pilot case is presented.

Factors that influence Chinese automotive suppliers’ mass customization capabilities

China is one of the largest and most rapidly growing automotive markets in the world. In such a dynamic environment, mass customization (MC) is considered crucial to developing and maintaining the competitiveness of automotive suppliers. Literature has suggested that the MC capability of a firm can be achieved by systematically (1) coordinating suppliers, (2) implementing modularity-based manufacturing practices, and (3) postponing key production steps that determine specialized product features and performance. However, since research has also indicated that the Chinese manufacturing context differs substantially from others around the world; it is unclear if these same MC practices are as applicable for Chinese automotive suppliers.This study applies social dilemma and resource dependency theories to explore MC capabilities in Chinese automotive suppliers, and determines that some, but not all, MC practices are pertinent in the Chinese market. The practices which were found to be significant were: tactical alignment increases product and process modularity design; and product modularity design, process modularity design, and supplier segmentation can directly or indirectly increase mass customization capabilities. Relationships between tactical alignment and postponement practices and between postponement practices and mass customization capabilities were not found to be statistically significant in the Chinese context. These novel MC results are valuable since they can help guide automotive manufacturers and suppliers in their expansion into and throughout the Chinese market.

Impact of supply chain strategy on mass customisation implementation and effectiveness: evidence from China

Currently, designing a supply chain for mass customisation (MC) has become an issue that intrigued both the academia and industrial practitioners. In this study, we examine the fit between supply chain strategy and MC practices and its impact on firm performance. We first develop supply chain configurations using cluster analysis and find that the whole sample can be divided into four groups (leagile, lean, agile, and traditional). We then link the supply chain strategies with MC practices (elicitation, process flexibility technology, and logistics). Our results show that the impact of MC practices on operational performance is moderated by supply chain strategy configurations and that these practices are most beneficial in the leagile group. Our results hence suggest that MC practices require a leagile supply chain structure and underscore the importance of aligning the supply chain strategy with a distinctive set of processes and technologies for MC adoption.

Workplace Spirituality, Organizational Learning Capabilities and Mass Customization: An Integrated Framework

In today’s world organizations strive to achieve competitive advantage. To this end, mass customization (MC) asa source of competitive advantage has generated a lot of interest. Gap however exists in terms of exploringfactors enabling the successful development of MC. The current study examines the role of organizationallearning capabilities in the development of MC. In addition workplace spirituality has been known to influenceorganizational learning capability. Workplace spirituality also impacts overall employee as well asorganizational outcomes and practices. The goal of the study is to explore the linkages between the dimensionsof workplace spirituality, organizational learning capability and MC. Based on a comprehensive literature review,a theoretical framework and propositions are derived. The findings are expected to provide guidance for firms toeffectively develop MC practices.

The impact of mass customisation practices on performances: an exploratory study of Chinese manufacturers

Using a large-scale survey in China, this study identifies a set of manufacturing practices based on the framework proposed by Zipkin (2001), and builds and tests a model describing the relationship between mass customisation practices and firm performances. The results demonstrate that the mass customisation practices can bring benefits to manufacturers in terms of both cost reduction and product/service quality improvement, which in turn boost financial performance. Moreover, we find that the practices of elicitation, flexibility in design, advanced manufacturing technology (AMT), just-in-time (JIT) supply chain and integrated logistics information system (ILIS) play different roles in business performance improvement. To be specific, the elicitation and ILIS are very important to operational performance in terms of cost and product/service quality. The flexibility in design and AMT are beneficial to cost reduction only. However, the JIT supply chain has no impact on neither cost nor product/service quality in China.

Mass Customisation Models for Travel and Tourism Information e-Services

Online travel firms exploit current ICT advances for developing mass customization (MC) capabilities and addressing the needs of the sophisticated travellers. However, studies investigating MC in services and specifically in tourism are limited. By adopting a customer-focused approach, this paper addresses this gap by analysing the following issues: a) the ICT and product dimensions that online firms can customise for developing and implementing different MC models; and b) the customer value and benefits provided by the different MC models. After reviewing and illustrating the interrelationships of studies coming from the fields of customer value, MC and IS design, the author proposes a customer value based framework for developing MC models. The applicability and practical implications of this framework are demonstrated by analysing the MC practices of three online travel cyberintermediaries. Finally, the paper summarises the formulation of research propositions investigating the influence of users’ characteristics on the customer value and benefits sought by MC practices and on the design of the IS platforms supporting MC services.