PRODUCT VARIETY MANAGEMENT

Mass customization. Drivers of product variety and customization. Mass customization definition. Overview of mass customization enablers.

The product configuration process. Total and partial configurability. Traditional approaches to configuration. Configuration system architecture. Commercial product modeling. How to evaluate a sales configurator. Technical product modeling. Generic bills of materials. Models to determine product cost, price and code, graphic representation of customized products. Choosing the optimal degree of automation of a product configuration system. Selecting and implementing a product configurator. Organizational impacts of implementing a product configurator.

Form postponement types and market contingencies. Organizational changes for form postponement.

Modularization of a product family. Relationships between product configuration, component standardization, product modularization and form postponement.

The information systems support to Mass Customization. How to integrate PDM, CRM and product configurator.

The information-processing view (IPV) of organization design. Analyzing product configurator introduction and form postponement application through the lens of IPV.