| Abstract | Customer satisfaction improvement has become a key element in business strategy of
almost every industry. Several factors, including product feature, service quality, price,
personal and situational factors, have been identified giving contribution to the level of
customer satisfaction. One way to improve customer satisfaction is by reducing the gap
between what customer really needs (customer requirements) and what manufacturer can
provide (product specifications). The approach of Design for Customer (DFC) where
products are generated by translating customer needs into product specifications (in mass
production system) or into product variety (in mass customization system) is not able to
give optimum satisfaction to all customers. Some customers who may have individual
specific needs are still forced to relax their requirements and to accept predefined product
in the assortment. Optimum satisfaction can be obtained only if customers get what exactly
they want without compromising any requirements.
Proposed in this study is a new concept of Design by Customer (DBC) to increase
customer satisfaction by opening maximum possible channel for customers to involve in
value creation so that they are no longer only searching for goods but they can also, when
necessary, involve in production cycle to specify their own design. Although it can
increase the chance that everyone finds the product that exactly corresponds to his/her
requirements, involving customer in production cycle is not a simple task as it will
influence the product development process which is an interdisciplinary activity requiring
contribution from nearly all the functions of a firm. In order to ensure the viability of the
proposed concept, the integration of multi CIDP (Customer Involvement Decoupling
Point), product attribute analysis, crowdscreening and new manufacturing strategy are
introduced.
The approach of multi CIDP enables customers to enter in various points flexibly along the
value chain to define their desired product specifications according to their individual
preferences. Multi CIDP can be seen as a screening process to cluster customers based on
their needs and preferences. It allows manufacturers to capture a wider market as this
system can accommodate the customers of standard products, mass customized products
and personalized products. Some customers whose requirements are fit to what
professional designers have specified can easily get what they want in the form of
standard products in a short of time, while some who may need to adjust the product
specification can use configuration tool in mass customization environment to get one of
its variety. Last but not least, customers whose requirements do not match with the
available product variety still have possibility to order them by using design tools provided
by manufacturers. This strategy is expected to give maximum satisfaction to all customers
and reduce the manufacturing complexity as only particular customers will be served
individually.
Product attribute analysis is a tool to optimize the point of customer involvement in value
creation by setting the degree of product attribute flexibility. Three main factors identified
to give contribution to the attribute flexibility include (1) customer interest, (2)
manufacturing issue and (3) engineering and super system issues. A Go/No go analysis is
used to assess all attributes customers may focus on. Progressive PAA evaluation table is
utilized to conduct stage by stage assessments. Based on the table, the flexibility level of
the attributes of building elements can be identified. Accordingly, the position of CIDPs
can be assigned. Crowdscreening, a screening process by the crowd, is a strategy to establish a feasible and
optimum solution space for mass product differentiation under multi CIDP environment so
that system stability and flexibility can be achieved. The basic idea of crowdscreening is to
monitor the activity of customers (crowd) in specifying desired products to fulfill their
needs and then use the information to continuously update the product specifications
accordingly. The system which consists of three main modules, i.e. customer interface,
screening unit and database is intended to provide right goods to customers in a responsive
manner rather than a predictive basis in order to reduce the risk of forecasting. In addition
to identifying frequently selected parts (FSPs) and frequently selected configurations
(FSCs), the system also accommodates new designs from customers to be included in the
screening process. As a result, product life cycle is expected to be longer as the solution
space is regularly updated based on customers‘ preference (design evolution).
In terms of technology readiness, the proposed concept is coupled with a general platform
for DBC manufacturing system that has been developed by A-Cube research group at The
Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) Laboratory, Asian Institute of Technology,
Thailand. The system accommodates a variety of inputs from customers, including sketch,
drawing, 3D CAD model, picture/image as well as physical model. These inputs are
transformed into a general form of layer-based contour lines (binary images of 1-pixelwide closed contours), traced later using a topological hierarchy contour tracing system to
get ordered sequences of boundary pixels. In point to point (PTP) manufacturing system,
these ordered sequences of coordinates of the contours are required to generate toolpath
automatically prior to subsequent machining operations being performed. For rapid
manufacturing, the closed contours can be obtained by direct slicing process of a CAD
model.
A web-based DBC system has been developed to implement the concept. Its front-end user
interface and back-end database management system were constructed based on multi
CIDP environment. Table clock was selected as a practical example for field test to
demonstrate the system. Customers were observed to have willingness to involve in value
creation to satisfy their preferences. Based on the observation and survey evaluation, there
are clear indications for the proposed concept‘s applicability and its ability to give a
significant improvement in customer satisfaction.
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