Designing a Reference Model for Digital Product Configurators

Since the manufacturing industry is nowadays facing increasingly heterogeneous customer requirements, digital product configurators (DPC) have become a popular means for integrating customers into organizational value creation. DPC are information systems, which serve as a frontend to the customer and enable the individualization of products. The design of such a DPC is time consuming, expensive and lacks appropriate models offering guidance for its development. The paper at hand addresses these issues by providing a reference model (RM) for DPC development. The model has been constructed by means of an extensive literature review and was subsequently demonstrated and evaluated in a real world scenario. In order to ensure a flexible and individual development of company specific DPC the RM includes adaptation mechanisms. Therefore, our research provides a first building block to the endeavor of facilitating or even automating DPC development

Enabling parametric design space exploration by non-designers

In mass customization, software configurators enable novice end-users to design customized products and services according to their needs and preferences. However, traditional configurators hardly provide an engaging experience while avoiding the burden of choice. We propose a Design Participation Model to facilitate navigating the design space, based on two modules. Modeler enables designers to create customizable designs as parametric models, and Navigator subsequently permits novice end-users to explore these designs. While most parametric designs support direct manipulation of low-level features, we propose interpolation features to give customers more flexibility. In this paper, we focus on the implementation of such interpolation features into Navigator and its user interface. To assess our approach, we designed and performed user experiments to test and compare Modeler and Navigator, thus providing insights for further developments of our approach. Our results suggest that barycentric interpolation between qualitative parameters provides a more easily understandable interface that empowers novice customers to explore the design space expeditiously

Users' social-interaction needs while shopping via online sales configurators

The growing adoption of social web technologies such as social software (SSW) in online configuration environments has enabled the possibility of supporting configurator users in interacting digitally with real people while they are shopping for customized products. Previous research has identified that online sales configurators (OSCs) are currently connected to SSW with different modalities to provide configurator users with a variety of options to digitally interact with real people. Enriching the configuration environment with social-interaction tools has engendered the phenomenon of social-product customization. Recent studies considered the social product-customization by investigating the impact that community feedback and social comparisons has on configurator user. However, the OSCs users' need to interact with different referents during their configuration process, and whether the SSW-OSCs connections respond to this need are still unsearched. To address this gap, the present study explores (a) whether users experience the need to interact with different referents while shopping via OSCs and (b) which interaction modalities users are looking for. By considering 943 configuration experiences from 189 users of 378 OSCs for various consumer goods, the present study finds that the need for social interaction by OSC users is highly relevant. Moreover, OSC users perceive the need to interact with different referents during different stages of the configuration process, and, depending on the referent with whom they wish to interact, they are interested in different interaction modalities in terms of how and where those interactions take place. These findings imply that mass customizers may leverage their customers' need to interact with real people while shopping online via OSCs in order to better engage their actual and potential customers

DesignChain: Process Automation From Recording Of Customer Requirements To Production Release

Growing price pressure due to an increasing number of global suppliers, increasing individualization of products and ever-shorter development cycles are challenges facing the engineering industry. In this context, mass personalization represents the customized production of customer products with batch size one at the low unit costs of mass production. The possibilities of digitalization and automation of technical order processing open up the opportunity for companies to significantly reduce their complexity costs and lead times and thus increase their competitiveness. Many companies already use a range of simulation tools and configuration solutions but only as stand-alones. Often, the expert knowledge of employees is hidden in "knowledge silos" and is rarely networked across processes. The concept "DesignChain" will address these challenges by automating and digitalizing technical process planning from recording customer requirements to releasing a product to the shop floor. Configurators within DesignChain allow for mapping variant-rich products. This transformation of customer requirements into product properties makes it possible to generate even complex CAD models, such as models for large-scale equipment based on specific rules. An automated CAx chain will help to digitally transfer production-relevant documents to the shop floor for parts fabrication. This process, which can be fully automated, allows for the customized creation of variants based on current approval statuses

How Game Development Technology Can Assist in Visualization Challenges

Research has shown that product configuration is becoming an increasingly common aspect of commercial sales, where previously it would have been an advantage that sets your products apart from competitors, it’s now becoming normalised as a baseline service offered to customers. Product configurators are notoriously difficult to develop, often requiring mass amounts of content and data. Larger businesses with resources to spare can afford to take on the risks associated with developing a product configurator, but medium and smaller sized businesses often cannot, and so find themselves at an increasingly larger disadvantage. This study aims to investigate whether game technology can mitigate or remove some of the development risks associated with developing a product configurator. Building on existing work on product configurator development, it asks. Can game technology provide an advantage over traditional development solutions? And if so, how exactly does it improve on them Based on a review of the literature on product configurator development, it’s clear that traditional rendering solutions are fine if the products showcased feature low-levels of customisation. But if products exceed this customisation threshold, it’s evident that these practices cannot scale and so bottleneck production, making the investment and risk involved in continuing development too high. The results indicate that when using game technology, you can automate aspects of production, such as rendering and storage. The speed difference between traditional rendering solutions and game technology methods are considerable if implemented correctly. On this basis, it is recommended that game technology is used in place of traditional rendering solutions such as Blender, 3DS Max and other 3D rendering packages as the difference in production speed is immense and the inclusion of automating certain tasks outright removes certain tasks involved in the production of a product configurator

New technologies for customizing products for people with special necessities: project FASHION-ABLE

[EN] Mass-customization of wearable products are offered as a higher added value to the broad public and have to compete with ready-to-wear offer. However, people with specific requirements are not covered by the current mass-customised products. This is the case of the elderly, disabled, diabetic and obese population groups when wearing textiles, clothing, footwear and textile-based orthotic goods. Further, at present, available knowledge and flexibility of production equipment and machinery of small and medium-sized enterprises operating in these traditional industries (even those that already offer made-to-measure products to the mass public) is unable to respond to the individual needs among such heterogeneous groups. The FASHION-ABLE project has solved this problem with a comprehensive set of solutions.This work was supported by the European Commission [project number FP7.FoF.NMP.2011-4 Project 284 871] under FASHION-ABLE project (http://www.fashionable-project.eu/) Area: 'High tech solutions in production [...] for [...] healthy consumer goods'.Durá-Gil, JV.; Ballester Fernández, A.; Cavallaro, M.; Chiodi, A.; Ballarino, A.; Brondi, C.; Von Arnim, V.... (2016). New technologies for customizing products for people with special necessities: project FASHION-ABLE. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing. 30(7):724-737. https://doi.org/10.1080/0951192X.2016.1145803S72473730

Open reWall: Survey-to-production workflow for building renovation

A reabilitação de espaços interiores, num contexto de personalização em série, requer uma mudança na forma como os sistemas construtivos são desenhados, construídos e reutilizados. Recorrendo a plataformas digitais para a participação os arquitetos, em colaboração com outros atores na indústria AEC, podem desenvolver e oferecer soluções personalizadas e desmontáveis a utilizadores genéricos. Esta investigação propõe o uso de sistemas de construção personalizada em série (CPS) para fornecer sistemas de divisórias desmontáveis fabricadas digitalmente usando metodologias do levantamento à produção ligadas a configuradores online, em que os utilizadores co-projetam soluções para a reabilitação de espaços interiores. A metodologia de investigação socorre-se de pesquisa e análise teórica para definir critérios e objetivos a serem explorados em resolução de problemas de projeto. A partir destas experiências são sintetizados princípios e uma metodologia para a conceção de sistemas CPS de sistemas de divisórias personalizáveis e desmontáveis para a reabilitação. A metodologia clarifica os papeis dos atores, passos, e arquitetura do sistema para implementar um sistema CPS do levantamento à produção. A investigação demonstra que a metodologia de levantamento proposta é utilizável por utilizadores especialistas e não-especialistas, com os últimos a apresentarem em média melhores resultados, e que estes levantamentos têm precisão suficiente para processos do desenho à produção. Também se demonstra que a metodologia do levantamento à produção, a gramática genérica, e os critérios são úteis para os arquitetos conceberem sistemas de divisórias desmontáveis e personalizáveis para sistemas CPS abertos.Building renovation of interior spaces, in the context of mass customization, requires a shift in how construction systems are designed, built, and reused. Leveraging digital frameworks for user participation, architects in collaboration with other stakeholders in the AEC industry may design anddeliver customized and disassemble-able solutions to generic end-users. The research proposes mass customization construction (MCC) systems can deliver cost-effective digitally fabricated and disassemble-able construction systems using survey-to-production workflows deployed in web configurators for end-users to co-design solutions in building renovation. The research methodology uses theoretical inquiry and analysis to define criteria and objectives to be explored in design problem solving. From these experiments generalizable principles and a lowkey workflow for the design of MCC systems of customizable and disassemble-able partition wall construction systems for open building renovation are synthetized. The workflow clarifies stakeholder roles, steps, and system architecture to implement an MCC system from survey to production. This investigation demonstrates the proposed survey workflow is usable by non-expert and expert instance-designers, with the former having on-average better results, and that these can survey spaces with sufficient precision for design-to-production workflows. It is also shown the survey-to-production workflow, the generic grammar, and criteria are useful for architects to design customizable and disassemble-able partition wall systems for open MCC systems

Implementing Mass Customization Using SAP Variant Configuration and a 3D Printer

The process of manufacturing customized products at the efficiency of mass production is called mass customization manufacturing. In order to implement mass customization a product configurator, a well-planned configurable product platform and a flexible manufacturing technology are essential. As 3D printers are becoming more and more popular it is evident that they act as very flexible factories that could manufacture any object. This thesis tries to find out how 3D printers and product configurators could be combined to implement mass customization manufacturing. The system created in this thesis manufactures configurable motorcycles whose configuration model is maintained in SAP-ERP system. A product configurator built using SAP Variant configuration allows the user to configure a variant of the motorcycle according to their needs using the configuration model. This configured variant is manufactured using a 3D printer. Qualitative methods are used to gain knowledge and understanding about mass customization and SAP Variant configuration from books, scientific articles and software development forums. Using this knowledge the system is implemented which could manufacture approximately 23 different types of motorcycles customized by the user. The users who configure and manufacture the motorcycles also get hands-on knowledge about basic business processes in SAP ERP related to production planning (PP) and logistics (LO) modules and understand how information flows in the ERP system with respect to mass customized manufacturing.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format