Contextual variety, Internet-of-things and the choice of tailoring over platform : mass customisation strategy in supply chain management

This paper considers the implications for Supply Chain Management from the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) or Internet Connected Objects (ICO). We focus on the opportunities and challenges arising from consumption data as a result of ICO and how this can be translated into a provider’s strategy of offering different varieties of products. In our model, we consider two possible strategies: tailoring strategy and platform strategy. Tailoring strategy implies that a provider produces multiple varieties of a product that meet consumers’ needs. Platform strategy depicts the provider’s actions in offering a flexible and standardised platform which enables consumers’ needs to be met by incorporating personal ICO data onto various customisable applications independently produced by other providers that could be called on in context and on demand. We derive conditions under which each of the strategies may be profitable for the provider through maximising consumers’ value. We conclude by considering the implications for SCM research and practice including an extension of postponement taxonomies to include the customer as the completer of the product

Developing distributed manufacturing strategies from the perspective of a product-process matrix

In today’s highly competitive global business landscape, customers demand personalised products and responsive distribution systems, hence fuelling the concept of Distributed Manufacturing (DM) as a paradigm that suggests the geographical distribution of manufacturing systems adjacent to the markets to enable ‘production on demand’. To this end, the objective of this research is to explore the DM concept to inform firms about the dynamically changing manufacturing environment, along with the emerging opportunities, and support business stakeholders in implementing DM-oriented strategies to achieve digitalisation, personalisation, and localisation. More specifically, the present research builds upon the Dynamic Capability Theory (DCT) and conducts semi-structured interviews with a panel of 16 experts from the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods, Automotive, and Engineering industries to develop 12 exploratory industry cases. Our analysis highlights that companies can adopt three strategies to implement DM and realise shorter lead times and personalised product offerings, namely: (i) small-scale DM; (ii) in-house decoupled manufacturing; and (iii) outsourced decoupled manufacturing. However, the economic viability of the DM concept is identified as a significant barrier to relinquish the traditional centralised economies-of-scale. This research contributes by applying the DCT to the DM concept to advocate the viability and sustainability of manufacturing systems in the era of Industry 4.0. Pertaining to the originality of this research, limited work is available on the applicability of DM in industries, from the DCT perspective, to accomplish competitive advantages in the dynamic environment of manufacturing.his research has received funding from the EPSRC under Reference No. EP/K02888X/1, Project Title: “Engineering Driven Sustainable Supply Networks – A UK/India Collaborative Study”

A method for capturing customers’ preferences for housing customisation

The housebuilding sector has used mass production systems and reduced portfolios for many decades in different countries, countering the constant changes in society, resulting in neglecting the increasing diversity of customers’ requirements. Housebuilding companies should be able to meet this requirement’s diversity by offering a higher product variety and at the same time maintaining costs within market expectations. Mass customisation strategies have been presented as efficient alternatives to keep the balance between fulfilling clients’ specific needs and maintaining reasonable prices in housing by focusing on value generation. Moreover, there are limited ways of increasing value generation in housing considering its tradeoff with product cost, emphasising the need for the delimitation of a set of options (i.e.: solution space) adequate to customers’ preferences. Some research opportunities highlighted in the literature for adopting mass customisation in housing include solution space clear definition and the need for methods to explore the value perceived in product alternatives and reduce trade-offs between preferences and choice complexity. Accordingly, the main aim of this investigation is to propose a method for capturing customers’ preferencess and supporting customer integration in mass customisation strategies for housing. The design science approach was used as methodological underpinning for building the solution in this investigation. This thesis was structured in three academic papers. The first paper provides an overview of the available practices in house building and focuses on developing a framework of customer integration and core decision categories that support the definition of mass customisation strategies. In the second paper, a method for identifying customers’ preferences and support solution space definition was proposed, based on preference modelling and willingness-to-pay approaches regarding customer value and its balance with operations costs. In paper 3, another method is presented by adapting menu-based choice for housing and its implementation in an empirical study. The main contributions of this thesis include the method for capturing customers’ preferences, a framework of decision categories, and approaches for modelling customers willingness-to-pay for customised housing

Service productisation through standardisation and modularisation: an exploratory case study

This research study examines service productisation through the standardisation and modularisation of service. This concept is studied and applied to a professional service company which is running a productisation project for improving its services. This productisation project continues further through defining, describing, and developing a service platform and standardisation of its overall services. The main objective of this study was to promote sales through the identification and definition of products and their accompanying services. Moreover, the study explores and applies service development models, namely the model of integrating markets, modular service platform, identification of modules using design structure matrix (DSM), and model for service automation. Furthermore, the study also aims to find solutions for the standardisation and modularisation of services through these models and investigates the associated benefits and issues related to overall services.© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

The feasibility of adopting clothing mass customisation in South Africa

Abstract: Mass Customisation (MC) is increasingly seen as a strategy to survive in the competitive clothing fashion markets. This importance to retail sales necessitates its consideration in the South African context. There is a paucity of literature on adopting MC so exploring the feasibility of MC for South African clothing manufacturers was a step in understanding what is required from manufacturers. Three corporate clothing manufacturers were selected for qualitative interviews to determine whether they currently exhibit identified competencies from literature considered essential to undertake MC. Two manufacturers exhibited key competencies of communication, human capital, flexibility and technology needed for MC success

Tight versus lose specifications in service operations

In this exploratory paper we contend that a service specification is an important mechanism which is needed to plan and control the design and delivery of a service. Despite this importance it is surprising that there is limited coverage of the nature of specifications in both the manufacturing and service operations literatures. The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the key differences between a service specification in a mass service and in a professional service. The underlying hypothesis is that mass services will have a tight specification and professional services a loose specification. Based on interviews with senior managers in a UK and a Portuguese bank we found, contrary to expectations, that both mass and professional services made use of tight specifications. Professional services created their customisation from the tightly specified base using skilled staff at the interaction with the customer. We would also seek to challenge the view that mass and professional service processes are distinct, as they both appear to have mass-type tendencies with standardised and tightly controlled cores, and that professional services differ simply through the addition of a degree of customisation

Modularisation strategies in the AEC industry:a comparative analysis

Many industries have benefited from modularisation; while in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, the concept of modularisation is associated with dimensional coordination. This has added to an already extensive list of challenges due to market size and the concept of economies of scale in AEC industry, to name but a few. Moreover, there is a myth that the AEC industry is bound to stay associated with build-to-order or made-to-order approach caused the AEC industry to restrict modularisation to the component level. This changes the balance in favour of what this paper calls a bottom-up approach. On the other hand, a valid alternative strategy–referred to in this study as top-down strategy–remains very much underexploited. The clients, therefore, do not have a neutral means by which they can assess which strategy is in their best interest. Likewise, if a construction company plans to make a strategic move towards the principles of modularisation and off-site manufacturing, they do not have clear decision support tools. This study investigates these two main modularisation strategies in the AEC industry to provide some examples of successful cases regarding how, when and where such strategy have been applied by different construction companies in different cases. The collected and collated empirical data and the results from the interviews will help clients and companies to analyse their own cases and make operational decisions on how, when and where to best utilise the bottom-up and top-down modularisation techniques while considering the pros and cons of such decisions

Extending customer order penetration concepts to engineering designs

Purpose - The customer order decoupling point (CODP) concept addresses the issue of customer engagement in the manufacturing process. This has traditionally been applied to material flows, but has more recently been applied to engineering activities. This later subject becomes of particular importance to companies operating in ‘engineer-to-order’ (ETO) supply chains, where each order is potentially unique. Existing conceptualisations of ETO are too generic for practical purposes, so there is a need to better understand order penetration in the context of engineering activities, especially design. Hence, we address the question ‘how do customer penetration concepts apply to engineering design activities?’ Methodology - A collaborative form of inquiry is adopted, whereby academics and practitioners co-operated to develop a conceptual framework. Within this overarching research design, a focus group of senior practitioners and multiple case studies principally from complex civil and structural engineering as well as scientific equipment projects are used to explore the framework. Findings - The framework results in a classification of nine potential engineering subclasses, and insight is given into order penetration points, major uncertainties and enablers via the case studies. Focus group findings indicate that different managerial approaches are needed across subclasses. Implications –The findings give insight for companies that engage directly with customers on a one-to-one basis, outlining the extent of customer penetration in engineering activities, associated operational strategies and choices regarding the co-creation of products with customers. Care should be taken in generalising beyond the sectors addressed in the study. Originality - The paper refines the definition of the ETO concept, and gives a more complete understanding of customer penetration concepts. It provides a comprehensive reconceptualization of the ETO category, supported by exploratory empirical research