19 Flexibility and Reconfigurability for Mass Customization
An analytical approach
Alessandro
Urbani, Lorenzo Molinari-Tosatti, Roberto Bosani and Fabrizio Pierpaoli
ITIA-CNR Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation,
National Research Council, Milan, Italy
In the 21st century, companies
are going to operate in a dynamic and challenging environment that requires
new approaches to manufacturing. Mass customization is a general trend
that is more and more widespread, being felt as the productive paradigm
for the future. On the manufacturing point of view, much work must be
done to develop adequate manufacturing systems meeting the new requirements,
since traditional solutions (both transfer lines and flexible manufacturing
systems) don't seem to be able to face the demands of mass customization.
However, not only manufacturing area is involved in this evolution but
also managerial and organizational aspects. For these reasons this chapter
discusses the relation between the mass customization paradigm and the
evolution of manufacturing systems. Several mass customization oriented
paradigms are compared with a hypothetic, desirable evolution in market
organization, providing an analytical approach to flexibility and reconfigurability
as possible means of facing today's competitive demands.
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