Customer Individual Product Development – Assessment of Individualization Potential

These days, companies are more and more forced to differentiate themselves from competitors due to a constantly changing, highly interconnected and complex environment. The development of customer individualized products is a promising approach to cope successfully with this situation. Numerous challenges arise from a company perspective in this respect. One of the most important ones is the determination of product components which will be offered to the customers for individualization and which not. Therefore, a product independently applicable methodology for the identification of a suitable trade-off between customer related individualization needs and their feasibility from a company perspective is presented in this paper. Finally, the evaluation of the applicability of the methodology is proved on the basis of a fully automated coffee machine provided by a large manufacturer of home appliances.     «

These days, companies are more and more forced to differentiate themselves from competitors due to a constantly changing, highly interconnected and complex environment. The development of customer individualized products is a promising approach to cope successfully with this situation. Numerous challenges arise from a company perspective in this respect. One of the most important ones is the determination of product components which will be offered to the customers for individualization and whic...     »