Customizability analysis in design for mass customization

Product customization has been recognized as an effective means to implement mass customization. This paper focuses on the customizability issue of design, that is, to evaluate the cost effectiveness of a design to be customized in order to meet individual customer needs. Three aspects of customizability are identified, namely, (1) design customizability: the intrinsic nature of product by design, which renders customization to be easy or deficient for either customers or the manufacturer, (2) process customizability: the economic latitude of (production) process variations due to product customization, and (3) the value of customization as perceived by the customers. While design customizability is measured based on the information content metric, the evaluation of process customizability follows the general gist of process capability indices. Conjoint analysis is employed to explore customer preference for multiple product features in terms of utility. Customizability analysis thus exhibits a maximization of customer-perceived value while exploiting the potential of design to be customized by achieving optimal design and process customizability indices. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.