On Configuration Systems in Product Development for Mass Customisation

Increased industrial interest in mass customisation causes designers and manufacturers to seek cost-effective methods to continuously rationalise product development and production processes in order to accommodate for customisation on a large scale. Particularly in the case of complex products this requires significant engineering efforts. Mass customisation in an engineer-to-order context includes customers in early stages of product development, providing designers and manufacturers with certainty in decision making. A large portion of design tasks associated with design and production preparation stages during the product development process are routine-like and repetitive, amounting to vast time costs and errors. By utilising knowledge-based design automation techniques, these tasks can be supported to allow for iterative design processes as well as improved integration and communication between development phases. This work explores how the use of design automation in the form of product configuration systems can facilitate integration throughout the product development process of engineer-to-order products and allow the industry to rise to the challenge of mass customisation. This licentiate thesis describes the development of a framework incorporating product configuration systems based on High Level CAD templates (HLCt) together with auxiliary design optimisation and production preparation tools. Leveraging on the reuse of product knowledge, it focuses on rapid configuration of light-weight conceptual designs for quotation in dialogue with customers, and support of detailed design and generation of production data for confirmed orders. Based on the findings from implementation of such framework in an SME context of mass customisation of spiral staircases as well as engineering education, the challenges and possibilities are discussed with an eye on the future of design automation for mass customisation