Mass customization is the new business approach that was for the first time presented by Stan Davis in his book Future Perfect in 1987. Until now there is no publication dedicated do this topic in the Czech professional literature, therefore one of the goals of this dissertation thesis is to present this concept.
Mass customization reacts to the new market conditions especially growth of market turbulence, continuously increasing competition and the rise of market of one.
Mass customization means the fabrication of goods customized for every one customer for price comparable with mass production. Procedure is that the customer expresses his expectations at first and subsequently the production of his article is started. The main advantage is the possibility to better satisfy customers needs. In this way some economic problems are solved: there are no stock costs, less risky planning is needed and no futile finished products are made. Other important advantages are that a company can address new clients, higher price is acceptable for higher value, a company adaptation is better and a company’s image can be upgraded. On the other hand there are some shortcomings. The organization of production is much more difficult and it is further complicated by requests regarding the fabrication speed and the quality control.
The concept of mass customization requires deep changes in company processes to be viable. Redefinition is needed particularly in the organization of manufacturing process and in the communication with a client.
Due to the high quantity of product variety which can easily reach billions, mass customization brings new type of communication with client which is based on configuration systems. The configuration system is IT tool serving to set up all product components. In optimal case no more communication with client is needed.
For this reason the importance of the configuration systems is very high. To configure a product assume to make decisions between optional components. Usually customer is not an expert in a product branch and he needs so that the configuration system helps him with the decisions in the way that he configures what he intend, what he needs. This poses a great challenge to the intelligence of the configuration systems.
Even though, positives of mass customization are impressive there are still few practical applications. The main goal of the dissertation thesis is to find the
relation between slow progress of mass customization in the Czech Republic and the state of existing configuration systems.
To reach the main goal of the thesis the professional literature have been reviewed and the survey of 50 existing configuration systems has been carried out.
In the professional literature there is the prevailing opinion that the communication with customer is one of the key success factors of mass customization realization. The result of survey of existing configuration systems was in contrast with this finding. Most of them are at inconvenient level.
Functions of configuration system can be divided into basic and extending. If the configuration system does not meet basic functions, it cannot serve for communication as needed in mass customization. Basic functions are 1) to enable product configuration, 2) to check the validity of configuration, 3) to insure information for decision about every component 4) to print configuration, 5) to create order and 6) to save and reconfigure product. According to survey 90 % of the existing configuration systems do not implement all of these basic functions. In one third of cases the configuration check does not work correctly and also one third do not enable function to send finished order to company. From this point of view many configuration systems look rather like the test tools than the real communication tools.
If the configuration system should become complex communication tool as it is needed in mass customization, then it should cover also extending functions.
Extending functions are especially 1) an expert approach of configuration system, 2) to preserve user login, 3) to insure information at high level of details and with logic links, 4) to include graphic or multimedia tools, to provide life customer support, 5) to implement marketing functions and 6) to include additional services. These functions are needed if the relation with client should be permanent. Survey revealed that 66 % of the configuration systems do not implement functions to maintain the contact with a customer after his order is sent. Only about 14 % of the existing configuration systems implement these functions at acceptable level.
Overall finding of the thesis is that the technical level of the existing configuration systems has negative impact on the development of mass customization. The configuration systems are enablers for mass customization and the level of their skills is too low to be practically usable.
The thesis contains two case studies where the suggestions how the appropriate configuration system should be made out are demonstrated. In this way the thesis aims to become applicable for future configuration systems design.
Mass customization is direction precious especially for Europe because it is based on high added value for customer. This thesis tries to contribute to its future expansion in the Czech Republic.
Seznam použitých zkratek a speciálních termínů
B2B Business to Business. Obchodní vztah mezi dvěma podniky.
B2C Business to Customer. Obchodní vztah mezi podnikem a zákazníkem.
Back-end Část informačního systému podniku sloužící k obsluze požadavků zákazníků.
Banner Způsob internetové reklamy spočívající v zobrazení obdélníkové reklamy na okraji stránky.
BI Business Intelligence. Systémy pro kompletní zpracování informací v podniku z interních i externích zdrojů a pro poskytování informací řízení společnosti na různých úrovních.
CI Customer Intelligence. Systémy pro shromažďování informací získaných při interakci se zákazníkem a pro jejich analýzu.
CRM Customer Relationship Management. Informační systém zaměřený na budování vztahu se zákazníkem.
EIS Executive Information System. Programy zaměřené na podporu strategického rozhodování v podniku.
ERP Enterprise Resource Planning. Informační systémy sloužící k integraci všech dat získávaných podnikem do jednoho systému.
Front-end Část informačního systému, se kterou se zákazník dostává do styku.
Chat Způsob online komunikace spočívající ve výměně krátkých zpráv prostřednictvím speciálního programu. Zprávy jsou doručovány partnerovi v reálném čase.
ICQ I seek you. Nejrozšířenější program využívaný pro chat.
Konfigurace Kompletní rozpis komponent, ze kterých se výrobek skládá.
Konfigurátor Konfigurační systém. Program sloužící k sestavení výrobku, který se skládá z více komponent.
Skype Program umožňující volání prostřednictvím internetu, tj.
prostřednictvím IP telefonie.
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