Mass customization and mass personalization meet at the crossroads of Industry 4.0: A case of augmented digital engineering

Abstract

After mass production and then mass customization, the time is almost ripe for mass personalization. The goal is to offer unique products designed for the needs of each customer. However, production in larger series of products also has its advantages, and the promise of “lot size one” is still far from being the norm in several sectors of the economy. As a result of an action research project in a small household ceramic producer, this paper explores the potential of a hybrid strategy. Augmented digital engineering is adopted to (1) ensure customer participation along the entire product design lifecycle, (2) maintain the benefits of modularization and low cost, (3) minimize the waste of time and materials during product design, and (4) seek a minimum trade-off between customer desires and engineering strategy. For theory, our work describes Industry 4.0 technology's role in achieving individual customer interaction and value co-creation in hybrid strategies of mass customization and mass personalization. For practice, we present an example of technological architecture to implement augmented digital engineering in Industry 4.0, accessible to scenarios of hand-intensive work and creative design processes.