Attribute Identification and Predictive Customisation Using Fuzzy Clustering and Genetic Search for Industry 4.0 Environments

Today´s factory involves more services and customisation. A paradigm shift is towards “Industry 4.0” (i4) aiming at realising mass customisation at a mass production cost. However, there is a lack of tools for customer informatics. This paper addresses this issue and develops a predictive analytics framework integrating big data analysis and business informatics, using Computational Intelligence (CI). In particular, a fuzzy c-means is used for pattern recognition, as well as managing relevant big data for feeding potential customer needs and wants for improved productivity at the design stage for customised mass production. The selection of patterns from big data is performed using a genetic algorithm with fuzzy c-means, which helps with clustering and selection of optimal attributes. The case study shows that fuzzy c-means are able to assign new clusters with growing knowledge of customer needs and wants. The dataset has three types of entities: specification of various characteristics, assigned insurance risk rating, and normalised losses in use compared with other cars. The fuzzy c-means tool offers a number of features suitable for smart designs for an i4 environment

The Role of the Mangement Sciences in Research on Personalization

We present a review of research studies that deal with personalization. We synthesize current knowledge about these areas, and identify issues that we envision will be of interest to researchers working in the management sciences. We take an interdisciplinary approach that spans the areas of economics, marketing, information technology, and operations. We present an overarching framework for personalization that allows us to identify key players in the personalization process, as well as, the key stages of personalization. The framework enables us to examine the strategic role of personalization in the interactions between a firm and other key players in the firm's value system. We review extant literature in the strategic behavior of firms, and discuss opportunities for analytical and empirical research in this regard. Next, we examine how a firm can learn a customer's preferences, which is one of the key components of the personalization process. We use a utility-based approach to formalize such preference functions, and to understand how these preference functions could be learnt based on a customer's interactions with a firm. We identify well-established techniques in management sciences that can be gainfully employed in future research on personalization.CRM, Persoanlization, Marketing, e-commerce,

From Social Data Mining to Forecasting Socio-Economic Crisis

Socio-economic data mining has a great potential in terms of gaining a better understanding of problems that our economy and society are facing, such as financial instability, shortages of resources, or conflicts. Without large-scale data mining, progress in these areas seems hard or impossible. Therefore, a suitable, distributed data mining infrastructure and research centers should be built in Europe. It also appears appropriate to build a network of Crisis Observatories. They can be imagined as laboratories devoted to the gathering and processing of enormous volumes of data on both natural systems such as the Earth and its ecosystem, as well as on human techno-socio-economic systems, so as to gain early warnings of impending events. Reality mining provides the chance to adapt more quickly and more accurately to changing situations. Further opportunities arise by individually customized services, which however should be provided in a privacy-respecting way. This requires the development of novel ICT (such as a self- organizing Web), but most likely new legal regulations and suitable institutions as well. As long as such regulations are lacking on a world-wide scale, it is in the public interest that scientists explore what can be done with the huge data available. Big data do have the potential to change or even threaten democratic societies. The same applies to sudden and large-scale failures of ICT systems. Therefore, dealing with data must be done with a large degree of responsibility and care. Self-interests of individuals, companies or institutions have limits, where the public interest is affected, and public interest is not a sufficient justification to violate human rights of individuals. Privacy is a high good, as confidentiality is, and damaging it would have serious side effects for society.Comment: 65 pages, 1 figure, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Product recommendation system based user purchase criteria and product reviews

In this paper, we propose a system that provides customized product recommendation information after crawling product review data of internet shopping mall with unstructured data, morphological analysis using Python. User searches for a proudct to be purchased and select the most important purchase criteria when purchasing the product. User searches for a proudct to be purchased and select the most important purchase criteria when purchasing the product. And extracts and analyzes only the review including the purchase criterion selected by the user among the product reviews left by other users. The positive and negative evaluations contained in the extracted product review data are quantified and using the average value, we extract the top 10 products with good product evaluation, sort and recommend to users. And provides user-customized information that reflects the user's preference by arranging and providing a center around the criteria that the user occupies the largest portion of the product purchase. This allows users to reduce the time it takes to purchase a product and make more efficient purchasing decisions

Rapid manufacturing as a tool for agile manufacturing: applications and implementation perspectives

Manufacturing engineers and technologists around the globe are already well familiar with manufacturing methodologies and systems developments in the last part of the twentieth century. Many are probably also familiar with the current state of Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies, especially in the areas of concept model making and prototype development. They may not however, be so familiar with the more recent developments of these technologies towards Rapid Manufacturing (RM) and the directions which the applications of RM technologies are taking for agile manufacturing purposes in particular. This paper critically reviews the various technologies currently available, outlines development trends in RM, discusses the approach, application and implementation perspectives by which these RM technologies are applied for increasing agility and responsiveness in manufacturing. Furthermore, the paper describes two case study examples to further illustrate the application scenarios in agile manufacturing before concluding remarks

Co-creative pricing (CCP) : a conceptual development of consumers’ participation in pricing practicing in services

Keskustelu yhteisestä arvonluonnista on saavuttanut yhä laajempaa huomiota niin nykypäivän tieteellisteoreettisessa markkinointikirjallisuudessa kuin käytännössä. Suosiosta huolimatta keskustelusta on jäänyt miltei tyystin huomioimatta arvokäsitteen eräs varsin oleellinen ulottuvuus: hinta. Siitä syystä on ensiarvoisen tärkeää tutkia hinnan merkitys arvokäsitteen, yhdessä tuottamisen ja hinnan muodostamassa suhteiden kolmiossa, sillä vaihdannassa hinta on yksi arvonmuodostuksen tärkeimmistä osatekijöistä. Toissijaisia tutkimusmenetelmiä käyttäen, tämän tutkimuksen tarkoitus on pyrkiä käsitteellistämään yhteinen hinnanluonti arvon lisääjänä. Niinikään tutkimus tarjoaa mallinnuksen niistä vallitsevista olosuhteista, jotka ovat arvon muodostuksessa välttämättömiä. Esitetty malli perustaa juurensa palvelumarkkinoinnin Service-Dominant Logic -ajattelusta, muodostaen fuusion yhdessä ARA-mallin ja markkinointikeskustelussa vallalla olevan elämysmarkkinointiajattelun kanssa. Tutkimus edistää yhteisen arvonluonnin tieteellistä keskustelua syventämällä jo olemassa olevaa tietoa arvon muodostuksesta. Lisäksi, tutkimus edistää käytännön tietämystä esittämällä eksploratiivisen avauksen hinnoittelun dynaamisesta yhteisajattelusta haastamalla markkinoijia ajattelemaan myös hinnoittelua uudesta innovatiivisesta yhteiseen arvonluontiin perustuvasta näkökulmasta. Nykyajan asiakkaat ovat yhä halukkaampia, pystyvämpiä sekä resursseiltaan rikkaampia osallistumaan hinnoittelupäätöksiin kuin aikaisemmin. Yhdessä tuotettu arvo hinnoittelun kautta tarjoaa vaihtoehtoisen ajattelutavan pitkään vallinneelle yritysten sisäänpäin suuntautuneelle hinnoitteluajattelulle ja esittää, että kääntämällä katse asiakkaan suuntaan, saavutetaan todellinen arvo, sellaisena kuin asiakas sen määrittelee. Tutkimuksessa esiin tuotu ajattelutapa tarjoaa uusia mahdollisuuksia vaihtoehtoisille hinnoittelumenetelmille sekä palveluinnovaatioille.Co-creation debate has increasingly become a key topic in the contemporary services marketing theory and practice. Domains of co-creation and value have thus far attracted plenty of academic interest, however, there is an evident deficiency of one essential dimension of value: price. In the triangular relation of co-creation, value and price, it is of high importance to research the role of price, as it is one of the prime components contributing to the formation of value in an exchange. Using secondary research methods, this research works towards a conceptualization of CCP and offers a model of the conditions that need to be in place for value through CCP to occur. The model builds its foundations on Service-Dominant Logic debate. Combined together with the ARA model, and the prevalent thinking of experiential marketing, the work contributes to the academic co-creation literature by adding to the knowledge of value creation. Further, it presents an explorative opening of dynamic pricing thinking for practitioners by challenging the marketers to think their pricing from an innovative co-creation based view. Co-created pricing offers an alternative logic to inwardly focused value creation of the firm and suggests that by turning the focus on the customer, the true value, as perceived by the customer, is captured. Today’s customers are increasingly willing, capable and rich in their resources to participate in pricing decisions, thereby offering an opportunity for alternative pricing methods and service innovations

Mobile commerce integrated with RFID technology in a container depot

2006-2007 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalAccepted ManuscriptPublishe

Fashion Conversation Data on Instagram

The fashion industry is establishing its presence on a number of visual-centric social media like Instagram. This creates an interesting clash as fashion brands that have traditionally practiced highly creative and editorialized image marketing now have to engage with people on the platform that epitomizes impromptu, realtime conversation. What kinds of fashion images do brands and individuals share and what are the types of visual features that attract likes and comments? In this research, we take both quantitative and qualitative approaches to answer these questions. We analyze visual features of fashion posts first via manual tagging and then via training on convolutional neural networks. The classified images were examined across four types of fashion brands: mega couture, small couture, designers, and high street. We find that while product-only images make up the majority of fashion conversation in terms of volume, body snaps and face images that portray fashion items more naturally tend to receive a larger number of likes and comments by the audience. Our findings bring insights into building an automated tool for classifying or generating influential fashion information. We make our novel dataset of {24,752} labeled images on fashion conversations, containing visual and textual cues, available for the research community.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, This paper will be presented at ICWSM'1

The influence of Chinese cultural values on consumer perceptions and behavioral intention towards an apparel mass customization website

Mass customization may deliver superior value to consumers compared to mass production because it provides personalized products with prices close to mass produced products. This assertion was made under the conditions and assumptions in Western societies where individual needs, rights, and interests are greatly valued. It is not known whether mass customization will deliver similar value to consumers in other societies, where different value systems exist. The purpose of the present study was to examine Chinese consumers\u27 responses toward mass customization and the influence of Chinese cultural values on these responses.;This study focused on web-based apparel mass customization and investigated (a) the effects of product price and customization level on consumers\u27 perceived value and (b) the effects of perceived value on consumers\u27 behavioral intention. Additionally, this research examined the moderating roles of Chinese cultural values on the relationships between the marketing attributes (price and customization level) and perceived value and between perceived value and behavioral intention.;The study used a between-subject experimental design involving manipulations of price and customization level. Four different treatments of a t-shirt website, resulting from the combination of two price levels and two customization levels, were used as the stimuli. A total of 344 participants from China participated in the study. Each respondent browsed one of the four randomly assigned treatments and completed an online questionnaire. Structural equation models were used to test the hypotheses.;Results showed that higher price significantly reduced Chinese consumers\u27 perception of economic value and efficiency, as hypothesized. Mass customization significantly enhanced consumers\u27 perceptions of product quality, enjoyment, and escapism, as hypothesized. However, respondents did not perceive enhanced economic value from the mass customization treatments. As hypothesized, perceived value explained behavioral intention. The study also found that two Chinese cultural values, relational orientation and man-nature orientation, significantly moderated the relationships between marketing attributes and perceived value and between perceive value and behavioral intention. These findings provide information needed for decision-making about marketing strategies for companies that would like to implement mass customization in China