MAKING PRODUCT CUSTOMIZATION PROFITABLE

Authors

  • Niels Henrik Mortensen Department of Management Engineering, Product Architecture Group Technical University of Denmark
  • Lars Hvam Department of Management Engineering, Product Architecture Group Technical University of Denmark
  • Anders Haug Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management, University of Southern Denmark
  • Per Boelskifte Department of Management Engineering, Product Architecture Group Technical University of Denmark
  • Christian Lindschou Department of Management Engineering, Product Architecture Group Technical University of Denmark
  • Simon Frobenius Department of Management Engineering, Product Architecture Group Technical University of Denmark

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23055/ijietap.2010.17.1.331

Keywords:

Product Family Design, Architecture, platform, product development

Abstract

The main result presented in this paper is the Framework for Product Family Master Plan. This framework supports the identification of a product architecture for companies that customize products and services. The framework has five coherent aspects, the market, product assortment, supply-production, organization and work processes. One of the unique results is that these aspects are linked, which make it possible to make explicit recommendations for an architecture (the way a product family should be structured with clear interfaces), architecture elements and consequences. By means of a case study it is shown that the potential EBIT (Earning Before Interests and Taxes) improvement of the case company is 10%.

Author Biographies

Niels Henrik Mortensen, Department of Management Engineering, Product Architecture Group Technical University of Denmark

Lars Hvam, Department of Management Engineering, Product Architecture Group Technical University of Denmark

Lars Hvam, Ph.D., is Professor at the Technical University of Denmark. He has been working on product configuration for more than 15 years as a teacher, a re­searcher and as consultant on more than 15 configuration projects in major industrial companies. He is heading the Centre for Product Modeling at the Technical University of Denmark. The group employs 8 researches and consultants, sponsored by the companies APC, AKER, NCC, the Danish Research Council and the Technical University of Denmark (www.productmodels.org).

Lars Hvam is also the founder and chairman of the Product Modelling Association, whose aim is to disseminate knowledge of the possibilities offered by product configu­ration.

Anders Haug, Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management, University of Southern Denmark

Anders Haug is Assistant Professor at the University of Southern Denmark, Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management. He received his PhD at the Technical University of Denmark, Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Management. His research focuses on information systems, knowledge engineering, product configuration and knowledge management in an industrial perspective. He has published a long list of papers on these topics in international journals and at international conferences. Furthermore, he has years of practical experience from projects in these areas.

Per Boelskifte, Department of Management Engineering, Product Architecture Group Technical University of Denmark

Per Boelskifte is professor of Design at the Technical University of Denmark, Department of Engineering Management since 2004. He is Head of the Section for Engineering Design and Product Development. He is also Leader of the “Design & Innovation” Bachelor of Science education at DTU, and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for The Danish Design Council. PB is a member of the Research Advisory Board for the The Industrial Design Engineering Faculty at TUDelft, Holland. PB’s main research areas are: Integrated product development, Engineering design: DfX, Industrial Design: Product semantics, and Human Factors.

Christian Lindschou, Department of Management Engineering, Product Architecture Group Technical University of Denmark

Christian Lindschou Hansen holds a M.Sc. in Engineering of Design and Innovation and is engaged in an industrial research project as a PhD student at the Technical University of Denmark. The project is carried out in cooperation with a selection of Nordic industrial corporations, with the aim of developing procedures and methods for the implementation of coordinated development of product architectures in integration with development of business processes.

He is a part of the Product Architecture Group at Technical University of Denmark, DTU management. The group employs 9 researchers and consultants within the field of development and implementation of procedures and methods for both supporting development of product families based on architectures and product platforms as well as product configuration.

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Published

2022-03-14

How to Cite

Mortensen, N. H., Hvam, L., Haug, A., Boelskifte, P., Lindschou, C., & Frobenius, S. (2022). MAKING PRODUCT CUSTOMIZATION PROFITABLE. International Journal of Industrial Engineering: Theory, Applications and Practice, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.23055/ijietap.2010.17.1.331

Issue

Section

Production Planning and Control