Customized product development through configuration process and modularity

Product customization has been recognized as a new battlefield for manufacturing enterprises, which enhances profitability through customer-perceived value and cost reduction in design and manufacturing. In order to address the implementation issue of customized product development, a working principle of integrating both configuration process and modularity phenomenon could be adopted. The impact of this decision can be viewed in terms of internal value-added activities of product development (PD) and production processes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the value-added activities within PD processes after adopting configuration principle and modular phenomenon with a view to satisfy customers needs and to gain in competitive business goal. A general overview towards an exploration of configuration process and modularity with examples and their limitations of implementations are also discussed.