Designing Platforms for Customizable Produces and Processes in Markets of Non-Uniform Demand

This definitive article is located at http://cer.sagepub.com. Copyright (2007) Sage Publications. DOI: 10.1177/1063293X07079328.The foremost difficulty in making the transition to mass customization is how to offer product variety affordably. The answer to this quandary lies in the successful management of modularity and commonality in the development of products and their production processes. While several platform design techniques have emerged as a means to offer modularity and commonality, they are limited by an inability to handle multiple modes of offering variety for multiple design specifications. The Product Platform Constructal Theory Method (PPCTM) is a technique that enables a designer to develop platforms for customizable products while handling issues of multiple levels of commonality, multiple product specifications, and the inherent trade-offs between platform extent and performance. The method is limited, however, by its inability to handle multiple design objectives and its reliance on the assumption that demand in the market is uniform for each product variant. The authors address these limitations in this paper by infusing the utility-based compromise Decision Support Problem and demand modeling techniques. The authors further augment the PPCTM by extending it use to a new domain: the design of process parameter platforms. The augmented approach is illustrated through a tutorial example: the design of a product and a process parameter platform for the realization of a line of customizable cantilever beams.National Science Foundation (Grants #DMI-0085136 and #DMI-9900259)

Infusion of Robustness into the Product Platform Constructal Theory Method

Today, mass customization has emerged as a manufacturing paradigm for a number of enterprises to efficiently and effectively satisfy customers requirements for product variety. The competitive nature of todays market makes it necessary for designers to have a methodology for designing customized products in such a dynamic environment. The Product Platform Constructal Theory Method (PPCTM), developed by Dr. Gabriel Hernandez, provides designers a methodical approach for synthesizing multiple modes of managing variety in the development of product platforms for customized products. The use of the PPCTM results in a hierarchical organization of the modes of managing customization, as well as the specification of their range of application across the product platform. The focus in this thesis is to augment the PPCTM in order to develop an effective product platform design method that alleviates three of its major limitations: inability to deal with uncertain distributions of demand, changing design parameters and changing extents of marketplaces. The infusion of concepts of robustness helps to address the first two limitations making the product platforms unaffected by large variations in demand and design parameters. The compromise Decision Support Problem is proposed to address the third limitation of changing extents of marketplaces by making tradeoffs between objectives of the initial market extent and future probable extensions. The result of this work is an augmented PPCTM that facilitates the synthesis of multiple modes for managing product variety in the presence of a dynamic environment. The augmented method is used to design a line of customizable pressure vessels and hand exercisers.M.S.Committee Chair: Mistree, Farrokh; Committee Member: Allen, Janet; Committee Member: Rosen, Davi

Consideration of the relevance of standard quality techniques in Mass Customisation

The business philosophy of Mass Customisation (MC) implies rapid response to customer requests, high efficiency and limited cost overheads of customisation. Furthermore, it also implies the quality benefits of the mass production paradigm are guaranteed. However, traditional quality science in manufacturing is premised on volume production of uniform products rather than of differentiated products associated with MC. This creates quality challenges and raises questions over the suitability of standard quality engineering techniques. From an analysis of relevant MC and quality literature it is argued the aims of MC are aligned with contemporary thinking on quality and that quality concepts provide insights into MC. Quality issues are considered along three dimensions - product development, order fulfilment and customer interaction. The applicability and effectiveness of conventional quality engineering techniques are discussed and a framework is presented which identifies key issues with respect to quality for a spectrum of MC strategies

Emotions and cognitive workload in economic decision processes - A NeuroIS Approach

The influence of cognitive and emotions on decision processes have been recently highlighted. Emotions interplay with the process of cognition, and determine decision processes. In this work, the role of external and internal influences on economic decision processes are studied. A NeuroIS method is applied for measuring emotions and cognitive workload. The lack of a suitable experimental platform for performing NeuroIS studies was recognized and the platform Brownie was developed and evaluated

Intersectoral Convergence and ICTs: Integrated ICT Approaches to Rural Poverty Reduction

As reforms have paved the way for India’s rapid economic expansion in recent years, particularly in the service sector, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has assumed a dominant role as the underwriter of India’s growth. Outside of the commercial applications where ICT has been most extensively applied so far, ICT also holds great potential to drive human development, narrowing gaps between the rich and the poor as well as rural and urban areas. In many development-adjacent sectors, particularly education, agriculture, and health, platforms and initiatives have already demonstrated ICT’s promise as a transformational suite of technologies which democratize information and dramatically reduce transaction costs. However, even greater progress is possible if initiatives apply an intersectoral approach which applies best practices from other sectors, highlights synergies between sectors, and identifies pitfalls stemming from hidden competition of priorities between sectors that could otherwise derail a project. Intersectoral analysis also recognizes how advances in the sectors under study contribute to growth in the broader economy. By applying an intersectoral lens, individual programs can be strengthened, new opportunities can be identified, and ICT can be more thoroughly woven into a tapestry that benefits all aspects of people’s lives. ICT-driven development has not entirely ignored intersectorality, but opportunities abound for improving these initiatives by applying a more holistic lens. In particular, the field of nutrition is most sorely in need of mainstreaming within the many different siloed development objectives that touch upon it. Data, the foundation of ICT, provides great opportunities for refining programs of all types, but also carries great risks to privacy and potentially social equality. And untapped synergies exist between the cutting-edge advances in the Education sector and educational initiatives in other sectors which have not benefited from the same intentional pedagogical design