Modeling the Delayed Differentiation for Assembly-to-Order System Based on Mass Customization

摘要

In the world market, mass customization gets more and more popular, which can have the enterprises achieve competent advantages and satisfy the customer better. Flexibility, timeliness, product variety and low cost are essential to the concept of mass customization. Postponement, as one of strategy for mass customization, can realize the essences of customization. In the paper, an assembly-to-order system is considered, which produces M end products, where each end product requires processes performed in N assembly stages. The system adopts the mode of mass production in upstream stages (the first k operations) and customer-driven or customization policy in the downstream stages. The system starts from a basic subassembly A_(1c). At each stage i (i = 1, 2, ... , N), component U is assembled to the base subassembly. Based on the system, we construct a model for evaluating the costs and time in the case that the point of differentiation of the system can be delayed, then by utilizing fuzzy theory, considering the integration of two important dimensions: costs and time, we can determine the optimal point of differentiation. The model developed enables us to characterize the optimal point of product differentiation and derive managerial insights. To illustrate the procedure of calculation, a simple example is presented.