Identification of the optimal product configuration and parameters based on individual customer requirements on performance and costs in one-of-a-kind production

Abstract

One-of-a-kind production (OKP) aims at manufacturing products based on the requirements from individual customers while maintaining the high quality and efficiency of mass production. This research addresses the issues in identifying the optimal product configuration and its parameters based on individual customer requirements on performance and costs of products. In this work, variations of product configurations and parameters in an OKP product family are modeled by an AND-OR tree and parameters of the nodes in this tree. Different product configurations with different parameters are evaluated by performance and cost measures. These evaluation measures are converted into comparable customer satisfaction indices using the non-linear relations between the evaluation measures and the customer satisfaction indices. The optimal product configuration and its parameters with the maximum overall customer satisfaction index are identified by genetic programming and constrained optimization. A case study to identify the optimal configuration and its parameters of window products in an industrial company is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the introduced approach.

Keywords:

• One-of-a-kind production (OKP)
• Optimization
• Genetic programming
• Customer requirements

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada through its Strategic Project program and by Gienow Windows and Doors. Research collaboration with Paul Dean at Gienow is also acknowledged.