Study On The Product Design Technology For Mass Customization

Mass Customization(MC) aims at providing customized products with the efficiency and cost of mass production. It is considered as the new frontier of 21 century. With the drastic market competition,companies have to transit from mass production,which focuses on products,to mass customization,which focuses on customers. Design for Mass Customization(DFMC) is the key aspect for the implementing of mass customization. Changes of design technology will influence all the company. Based on this understanding,the paper concentrates on the design technology for Mass Customization.Based on this view,the paper studies the design technology for mass customization. The paper surveys the development of MC and DFMC. The background and purpose of the study are also stated.The paper consists of five main parts:1) At first the problems of existing design technology are analyzed and the strategy of mass customization is presented. Then the basic theories for DFMC are summed including design for product family,modularity design,standardization design. By analyzing the two stages of the workflow for DFMC process,a system architecture for DFMC is established.2) In Mass Customization companies,products almost exist as product family,which is the appropriate product model for Mass Customization. The paper studies on the product family modeling process. The process decomposes product function according to customer requirement and map information hi function-principle-structure spaces. In the modeling process,the paper studies the method and benefits of function Ontology base in the function-principle modeling. An evaluation system for the scheme stage of product family modeling is established. The interval multiple attribute decision making is employed in the evaluation system. A modeling method based on SML is also studied.3) Product configuration is the effective way to realize order rapidly. The product configuration in this paper is based on the product family model. The separation of models and configuration may improve the generality of a configurator. The paper studies the representation of GBOM for product family. Based on the knowledge representation,the configurator employs constraint-based and SML-based reasoning. A. constraint propagation algorithm and fuzzy optimum selection are used to select component classesand to instantiate component classes. How to integrate the sales configurator4) The information technology supporting DFMC is studied based on PDM platform. The management of the enterprise design resources is based on SML classification system. Under the way of resource management,the relation between product family and resource is established by reference and classification code. And product instances,which are formed by product configuration,get their attributes and links with inheritage mechanism. The customization workflow is discussed based on above product information management. The system integration methods are also discussed.5) A case of implementing DFMC based on the study of the paper is presented. At first a system prototype based on the study of the paper is developed. Then the implementing workflow in Kaishan Ltd. of Zhejiang is presented. With the system prototype,the piston air compressor series are redesigned according DFMC theory in the paper. A new piston product family is developed. Products meeting the order requirement are formed with the product configurator based on the product family. The case verifies the validity of the method and technology hi the paper and the practicality of the prototype system developed based on the method and technology.