Assembly-initiated production - a strategy for mass-customisation utilising modular, hybrid automatic production systems

The assembly-initiated production (AIP) project aims at developing a strategy for mass-customisation with short lead times through the production. The presented results are the outcome of cooperative work between KTH and 19 companies of different sizes, active in Sweden. AIP is formed around the idea to assemble products from product modules on customer orders. The total delivery time would be time to process order + assembly time + shipping-time. This gives a total delivery time considerably shorter than when manufacturing the entire product to order. There are many factors to consider. Challenges like modularising the products to fit the strategy, finding ways to automate assembly and manufacturing operations, and at the same time, accomplish a flexible production solution. There are also many other factors to consider being successful in mass customisation, like materials supply and material handling issues, information system design and creating a suitable organisation form. Of utmost importance is the way the factors affect each other and the production as a whole when changes are made.