Which of the following is not a major approach to achieve mass customization?

How can mass customization bridge the gap between mass production and custom manufacturing? By using innovative and emerging technologies to collect data, create designs, manufacture parts, and assemble products. Let’s look at some of the most common technologies that enable mass customization and real-life examples.

Online, app, or software-based product configurators make it possible to add and/or change functionalities of a core product, modify the design/looks, or create custom designs or features from scratch. They’re some of the most common co-creation tools that are valuable for marketing as well as for directly capturing customer preferences that can be turned into customized products.

Some examples of product configurators include automotive configurators that allow customers to view the given car model in different colors, rims, and interiors; sunglass configurators that let customers virtually try on different frames and lenses, and more. Recently, new configurators have appeared that use augmented reality to make the experience even more realistic.

Tesla Motors’ product configurator lets customers customize their car and order it directly online, without ever having to visit a showroom.

Computer-aided design (CAD) is a method to digitally create 2D drawings and 3D models that has replaced manual drafting across a wide range of industries. The majority of products around us today are already being created with CAD design, and integrated tools specifically to enable mass customization are also rapidly emerging. 

Traditional CAD software is like a combination of a Swiss Army knife and a digital drawing board, offering a wide range of tools that allows designers to create anything. However, these tools have a steep learning curve and the pool of designers is limited. Consequently, CAD tools for mass customization are often tailored to specific workflows, thus decreasing the complexity of digital design, so trained personnel or customers can intuitively create or modify designs. 

For example, specialized CAD software tools are now available to design dental appliances, like aligners treatment, dentures, or crowns based on intraoral scan data of patients. Medical CAD tools empower healthcare professionals to design anatomical models, prosthetics, or surgical guides. Jewelry CAD tools let jewelry designers create new custom designs on their computers, which is infinitely easier to do at scale than hand carving traditional wax patterns.

Customizing jewelry digitally is infinitely easier than hand carving new wax designs.

3D scanning is the process of analyzing a real-world object or environment to collect data on its shape and/or appearance. The collected data can then be used to construct digital 3D models.

3D scanners and their uses are proliferating today, and they’re key tools for capturing data for mass customization. They’re often indispensable for mass personalization, where they’re used for referencing the exact shape of the human body, that can be used to create custom-fit products and appliances. While some applications require dedicated 3D scanners, smartphone scanning (photogrammetry and LiDAR) has developed rapidly, so billions of customers already have a scanner in their pocket capable of gathering data that can be used as an input for mass customization. 

For example, 3D scanners can be used to scan customers’ faces to create customized glasses, ear canals to make custom-fit earphones, teeth to produce a range of dental appliances, and more.

Dental intraoral scanners are an increasingly common sight in dental practices, replacing traditional, uncomfortable impressions. The digital data they gather can be used for designing dental appliances.

White Paper

3D scanning and 3D printing workflows can be applied to replication and restoration, reverse engineering, metrology, and more. Download our white paper to explore these applications and learn how to get started.

3D printing or additive manufacturing (AM) technologies create three-dimensional parts from computer-aided design (CAD) models by successively adding material layer by layer until the physical part is created.

While 3D printing technologies have been around since the 1980s, recent advances in machinery, materials, and software have made 3D printing accessible to a wider range of businesses and enabled more applications, including the manufacturing of end-use parts.

As 3D printers require no tooling, only the digital design needs to be changed to tailor each product to the customer without additional tooling costs. 3D printing also offers practically unlimited design freedom, as it can create complex shapes and parts, such as overhangs, microchannels, and organic shapes, that would be costly or even impossible to produce with traditional manufacturing methods. 

Additive manufacturing is one of the most widely used production technologies for mass customization, offering solutions for medical, dental, and audio appliances, manufacturing consumer goods, and more. 

Hasbro’s Selfie Series line of products introduces the personalization of action figures on a large scale to its customer base. Customers can scan their faces using their smartphones, pick a hairstyle, and configure a customized action figure. The customized heads are assembled with a standard/off-the-shelf action figure body made with traditional tools to keep the prices affordable and the customized action figure is shipped to the customer.

Gillette developed the Razor Maker concept that provides a direct-to-consumer customization workflow. Customers can use an online configurator to pick from a range of razor handle designs and colors, and choose to add their name to the design. The handles are produced with 3D printing and assembled with standard razor components.

Beyond directly manufacturing end-use parts, 3D printing can also be used to produce rapid tooling and manufacturing aids that can both support mass customized production.

White Paper

Learn about five core advantages of additive manufacturing that underpin mission-critical innovation in both products and business models.

Rapid tooling is the group of techniques used to fabricate tooling fast, at low cost, and efficiently for traditional manufacturing processes like injection molding, thermoforming, or compression molding, to create parts on a slim timeline or in lower quantities. 

Conventional tooling is most commonly produced out of durable metals using technologies such as machining and metal casting. However, these processes are expensive and better suited for large-scale production cycles. Rapid tooling provides means to produce custom or limited series of end-use parts using traditional manufacturing processes that would be prohibitively expensive using conventional tooling. This allows manufacturers to test the market for new products, offer a wider range of products, or customize parts based on customer needs.

The most popular common methods for producing rapid tooling are 3D printing and machining, with the former being most suited for mass customization.

Looking at real-life examples, vacuum forming over 3D printed models designed based on intraoral scans of patients is the go-to method for producing clear aligners in orthodontics. 

Jewelers also use CAD design to create patterns that can be cast directly to create customized jewelry. Traditionally, patterns for direct investment casting are carved by hand or machined if the part is a one-off or expected to be only a handful of units. With 3D printing, however, jewelers can directly 3D print the patterns, removing the design and time constraints common in other processes.  

Custom-fit ear devices such as in-ear monitors, hearing aids, or noise protection used to be labor-intensive and expensive to make, which means that they were only accessible to a few niche audiences. Now, 3D scanning can be used to scan someone’s ears and molds for casting silicone ear tips can be 3D printed, empowering audiologists to produce affordable custom-fit devices at scale.

Silicone ear molds can be 3D printed to produce custom-fit ear devices.

White Paper

In this white paper, learn how to combine rapid tooling with traditional manufacturing processes like injection molding, thermoforming, or casting.

Robotics and automation are the hallmarks of the third industrial revolution. The next generation of robots is practical for applications well beyond traditional strongholds like the automotive industry and they have an important place in many mass customization workflows. 

Advancements in computer vision, sensor technology, embedded processors, and artificial intelligence are making robots better at gripping irregular objects, navigating crowded industrial environments, and interacting with human workers.

While conventional industrial robots are isolated on the factory floor with cages, barriers, or safety enclosures, and are programmed to avoid contact with humans, collaborative robots promise to reshape automated factories, allowing for much more interaction between robots and humans.

Robots at every level are becoming easier to program, so companies don’t always need to depend on costly integrators. This makes industrial automation accessible to smaller manufacturers and those that need flexible production environments, which is essential for customization.

Connected factory assets, such as robots, sensors, and assembly stations, can also now be integrated through data platforms to inform not only day-to-day operations, but every stage of the product lifecycle, from ideation, design, and engineering, through distribution, sales, and service. This is essential for mass customization as job and part tracking are more complex and error-prone when every part is different.