Attribute-based integrated product process configurator for mass customization

Mass customization is currently a reality. It requires industries to rethink their product design to develop modular products and new approaches and tools for product configuration. Its main tool is a product configurator that should allow combining different product modules to satisfy individual customer needs. It impacts not only customer satisfaction but also manufacturing costs. The challenge is to propose an efficient product configurator allowing product configuration with highest customer satisfaction while ensuring production feasibility and efficiency. This paper proposes an integrated product configuration and process planning configurator that satisfies customer requirements while minimizing overall manufacturing costs. The configurator is attribute-based, hence instead of customer choosing a product variant to customize, she/he chooses required functions and the configurator chooses the most suited product variant to be customized. A demonstrator is developed and its preliminary testing results are presented.