Using mass customization techniques to realize true platform development

Markets are increasingly expecting high numbers of options and customization. At the same time, increases in the cost of product development are necessitating platform approaches to product development planning and execution. These two trends are complementary in companies moving from typical model-oriented product development toward mass customization. This paper will show how a local company (in Hillsboro, Oregon) has used mass customization techniques and IT to focus the development effort on platforms instead of models. It will propose a purely engineering and manufacturing adoption of mass customization, even if the marketing, sales, and accounting arms of an organization want to remain model-oriented. It will touch on complications involving the support of field reconfigurations of products, and implications that has for continued evolution of the underlying platform. It will touch on both hardware (BOM) and embedded software (extra-BOM) configuration.