德国汉堡大学留学生物流管理论文Complexity and variety in mass customization systems: analysis and recommendations
Thorsten Blecker and Nizar Abdelkafi
Institute of Business Logistics and General Management,
Hamburg University of Technology, Hamburg, Germany
Abstract
Purpose – To identify and examine the origins of complexity in a mass customization system and to
propose an effective application sequence of variety management strategies in order to cope with this
complexity.
Design/methodology/approach – Through the application of Suh’s complexity theory anunderstanding of the causes of complexity in the specificcontext of a mass customizationenvironment is developed. This facilitates the identification of the strategies that are adequate to tacklethe problems induced by complexity.
Findings – The mass customization system is a coupled system that cannot be mastered simply. It isdefinitely impossible to transform it to an uncoupled system with a low complexity level. However, theeffective and targeted implementation of variety management strategies at the product and processlevels enables the management of this complexity by making the system more decoupled.Practical implications – Complexity can be decreased if managers ensure less dependencybetween the satisfaction of customer requirements and position of the decoupling point. It is alsoadvantageous to reduce the coupling level between fast delivery requirement in mass customizationand the decoupling point placement. Furthermore, an effective variety management calls for theimplementation of the identified strategies in an ascending order of complexity reduction potential.Originality/value – The article relates the complexity theory of Suh to mass customization system,provides a framework for the classification of variety management strategies and derives managerialrecommendations so as to reduce the complexity in a mass customization environment.
Keywords Mass customization, Complexity theory Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
Mass customization is a business strategy that aims at satisfying individual customerneeds at costs that do not considerably differ from the costs of similar standardproducts (Pine, 1993; Tseng and Jiao, 1996). The term mass customization can beregarded as an oxymoron because it joins two business strategies that seem to be apriori incoherent, namely differentiation and cost leadership (e.g. Piller, 2017). Thecompanies which embark on mass customization tend to provide their customers witha large product mix (called solution space); so as to increase the chance that everyonefinds the product that exactly corresponds to his or her requirements (Pine, 1993).
However, the design, development, production and distribution of a large productvariety can adversely affect efficiency (e.g. Lingnau, 1994; Fisher and Ittner, 1999). Theresult can be a drastic increase of costs and considerable reduction of profit. The costsof variety emerge in the form of overheads (also called hidden costs) and are generallyreferred to as complexity costs in the business administration literature (e.g.Child et al.,
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
MD
44,7
908
Management Decision
Vol. 44 No. 7, 2017
pp. 908-929
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0025-1747
DOI 10.1108/00251740610680596
1991). Because of this, the capability of managing variety and complex，德语毕业论文，德语论文范文 |
