Mass Customization: Metrics and Modularity

Mass customization as a competitive strategy is getting progressively increasing attention in business and academic arenas due to its high potential to provide sustained strategic advantage in a unique fashion. It is well documented that a manufacturing company competes with others in its industry on five dimensions: Price, quality, flexibility, delivery, and service. According to the existing literature, mass customization provides significant strategic advantage in two of these dimensions—price and customization. We, however, argue that when properly implemented, the cellular manufacturing structure associated with the appropriate implementation of mass customization strategy, provides additional competitive value in quality and delivery. Furthermore by virtue of the customer co-design as an integral aspect of mass customization, customer satisfaction also improves under this strategy. Mass customization strategy, therefore, provides competitive advantage in all five competitive dimensions simultaneously—a truly unique strategic accomplishment. We also propose, in this paper, new metrics for mass customization strategy that measure the “mass” as well as the “customization” aspects of this strategy. Finally, we describe in the clearest terms the modus operandi of modularity in product design and the role it plays in bringing about high levels of customization on one hand and economies of scale at component level, on the other. We conclude with remarks that underscore the need for conducting research in the areas at the interface of mass customization and supply chain management.     

From mass customization to mass personalization: a strategic transformation

Business and operations strategists have long sought to formulate strategies that would serve profitably for a market of one. Two decades after its conception, there is growing evidence that mass customization strategy is transforming into a mass personalization strategy, making the market of one a reality, at least in select industries. The degree of transformation of a company depends on the extent to which its product is soft, i.e., can be produced electronically. Thus, at the lower end of the personalization spectrum are manufacturing companies engaged in producing hard, configurable products, while on the high end of the spectrum are service companies whose product can be totally configured and delivered electronically. The underlying factors that are enabling this transformation, in our view, are: (1) development of information technologies such as peer to peer (P2P), business to consumer (B2C), and Web 2.0, (2) near-universal availability of the Internet, (3) customer willingness and preparedness to be integrated into the process of product co-design and co-creation, (4) modern manufacturing systems, such as flexible manufacturing and, of course, (5) mass customization tools such as modularity and delayed differentiation, which help reduce manufacturing cost and cycle times and (6) deployment of customer-satisfaction-specific software called customer relationship management (CRM) to engender customer retention. Due to the importance and strategic success of affordable personalization, this issue is dedicated to that theme. The articles included in this issue would, I believe, serve as significant decision support mechanisms for companies pursuing a mass customization and personalization strategy. In addition to providing a brief perspective on articles included in this issue, we also summarize the state of the art of mass customization research.     

Mass Customization in Videotape Duplication and Conversion: Challenges of Flexible Duplication Systems,Fast Delivery,and Electronic Service

With the emergence of electronic commerce technology, marketers gained new methods for personalizing electronic advertisements, automating marketing research, and customizing product designs. These developments suggest that production operations also must be redesigned to support contemporary marketing objectives via mass customization. Yet, operations management research historically has focused on mass production systems buffering the customer from production operations. As such, the literature provides relatively few insights about managing mass customization operations. Thus, in this paper, we consider a previously unexamined type of mass customization production operations. The paper presents a case study of a manufacturer's videotape duplication and conversion system, consisting of a flexible network of heterogeneous, parallel machines used to duplicate and convert videotapes and other multimedia. We describe the characteristics of this flexible duplication system, discuss parallels between these systems and mass customization, and identify issues regarding flexibility, speed of delivery, and electronic service.     

Health care and the principle of fair equality of opportunity: a report from The Netherlands

In The Netherlands, the public funding of a number of health care services is controversial. What can we learn from this about the moral concerns that underlie these judgements? And, if there is anything to learn, can we use this improved understanding to scrutinise the adequacy of particular decisions concerning the public funding of health care services? In the present paper, I will analyse three cases: corrective surgey, In Vitro Fertilisation and liver transplantation. I will summarise the arguments that have been used to support or to challenge the public funding of these services. I will then assess the merits of Daniels’fair equality of opportunity account of justice in health care. Can this account improve our understanding of the moral concerns underlying our judgements about the public funding of these services? Can it serve to scrutinise the adequacy of particular decisions that are made concerning the public funding of health care services? My answer to both questions will be a qualified yes. Daniels’account can provide guidance, but not because we can deductively infer from it what is right and what is wrong. Instead, I will argue for a more casuistic use of the concept of fair equality of opportunity.     

Measuring the effectiveness of a mass customization and personalization strategy: a market- and organizational-capability-based index

The research of Kumar (Int J Flex Manuf Syst 16(4):287–312, 2004) is expanded to develop a methodology that measures the effectiveness of a mass customization and personalization strategy using a mass customization and personalization effectiveness index. This index extends Kumar (2004) in three significant ways: (1) it encompasses both service and manufacturing companies, (2) the assessment of product customization considers that customers assign different weights to different product features, and (3) the index captures the impact of both market perception and system capabilities. Three different measures are proposed. Which is appropriate should be a function of a particular company’s parameters. The circumstances under which each measure is best is a subject for future research. The validation and reliability of this index and these measures are also issues that should be addressed by future research.     

Mass customization: manufacturing issues and taxonomic analyses

As the field of mass customization (MC) attains the status of a mature discipline, two significant research deficits stand out. First, a through metareview of the entire body of MC research that looks at the application value and rigorousness of research is overdue. Second, manufacturing issues, especially those pertaining to quality and the supply chain have been largely ignored. This issue is dedicated to both of these important areas of research. The conclusion with regards to the status of the MC field is that it is currently vibrant, with growing research volume and applications. The manufacturing issues dealt with in this issue are strategically important, dealing with quality and customization issues. The work on quality is the first of its kind: it seeks to generate a defect-tracking matrix consistent with product configurations, enabling agile identification of defects in a mass customization environment. The use of discrete event simulation to deal with the dynamically evolving customized demand so as to minimize cost and schedule disruption is innovative, timely, and profound.     

Pharmacogenetics place in modern medical science and practice

Pharmacogenetic evidence-based treatment strategies will have major implications for all aspects of the product pipeline, including drug discovery, high throughput target screening protocols, lead optimization, and drug formulation to produce series of medicines for a particular disease which will meet the efficacy needs of the majority of patients. The initial proof of principle experiments involves whole genome screening for DNA variants and determination of specific patterns of variants associated with adverse events of marketed products [SNP Print(sm)]. Pharmacogenetics has the potential of changing the pipeline model of drug discovery, clinical development, and mass customization marketing.     

Ovipositional Reproduction of the Dengue Vector for Identifying High-Risk Urban Areas

Identification and classification of high-risk areas for the presence of Aedes aegypti is not an easy task. To develop suitable methods to identify this areas is an essential task that will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of control measures and to optimize the use of resources. The objectives of this study were to identify high- risk areas for the presence of Ae. aegypti using mosquito traps and household visits to identify breeding sites; to identify and validate aspects of the remote sensing images that could characterize these areas; to evaluate the relationship between this spatial risk classification and the occurrence of Ae. aegypti; and provide a methodology to the health and control vector services and prioritize these areas for development of control measure. Information about the geographical coordinates of these traps will enable us to apply the kriging spatial analysis tool to generate maps with the predicted numbers of Ae. aegypti. Satellite images were used to identify the characteristic features the four areas, so that other areas could also be classified using only the sensing remote images. The developed methodology enables the identification of high-risk areas for Ae. aegypti and for the occurrence of Dengue, as well as Zika fever and Chikungunya fever using only sensing remote images. These results allow health and vector control services to prioritize these areas for developing surveillance and control measures. The use of the available resources can be optimized and potentially promote a decrease in the expected incidences of these diseases, particularly Dengue.

     

Analytical affective design with ambient intelligence for mass customization and personalization

The fulfillment of individual customer affective needs may award the producer extra premium in gaining a competitive edge. This entails a number of technical challenges to be addressed, such as the elicitation, evaluation, and fulfillment of affective needs, as well as the evaluation of affordability of producers to launch the planned products. Mass customization and personalization have been recognized as an effective means to enhance front-end customer satisfaction while maintaining back-end production efficiency. This paper proposes an affective design framework to facilitate decision-making in designing customized product ecosystems. In particular, ambient intelligence techniques are applied to elicit affective customer needs. An analytical model is proposed to support affective design analysis. Utility measure and conjoint analysis are employed to quantify affective satisfaction, while the producer affordability is evaluated using an affordability index. Association rule mining techniques are applied to model the mapping of affective needs to design elements. Configuration design of product ecosystems is optimized with a heuristic genetic algorithm. A case study of Volvo truck cab design is reported with a focus on the customization of affective features. It is demonstrated that the analytical affective design framework can effectively manage the elicitation, analysis, and fulfillment of affective customer needs. Meanwhile, it can account for the manufacturer’s capabilities, which is vital for ensuring a profit margin in the mass customization and personalization endeavor.     

Monitoring global rates of biodiversity change: challenges that arise in meeting the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 2010 goals

By agreeing to strive for 'a significant reduction in the current rate of loss of biological diversity' by the year 2010, political leaders at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (held in Johannesburg, South Africa) presented conservation scientists with a great opportunity, but also one of their most significant challenges. This is an extremely exciting and laudable development, but this reporting process could be made yet more powerful if it incorporates, from the outset, independent scientific assessment of the measures, how they are analysed, and practical ways of plugging key gaps. This input is crucial if the measures are to be widely owned, credible and robust to the vigorous external scrutiny to which they will doubtless be exposed. Assessing how rates of biodiversity loss have changed from current levels by 2010 will require that a given attribute has been measured at least three times; however, most habitats, species, populations and ecosystem services have not been assessed even once. Furthermore, the best data on which to base estimates of biodiversity loss are biased towards the charismatic vertebrate species; unfortunately, these supply minimal services to the human economy. We have to find ways to redress this taxonomic imbalance and expand our analyses to consider the vast diversity of invertebrate, fungal and microbial species that play a role in determining human health and economic welfare. In the first part of this paper I will use examples from local and regional monitoring of biological diversity to examine the desired properties of 'ideal indicators'. I will then change focus and examine an initial framework that asks how we might monitor changes in the economic goods and services provided by natural ecosystems. I will use this exercise to examine how the set of possible indicators given by the Convention on Biological Diversity might be modified in ways that provide a more critical assay of the economic value of biological diversity. Here I will emphasize that we need not only to monitor these benefits, but also to significantly increase public awareness of human dependence upon the role that non-voting species play in driving the world's financial economy.     

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTIONS IN PHARMACY PRACTICE IN GREAT BRITAIN

Pharmacists who refuse to provide certain services or treatment for reasons of conscience have been criticized for failing to fulfil their professional obligations. Currently, individual pharmacists in Great Britain can withhold services or treatment for moral or religious reasons, provided they refer the patient to an alternative source. The most high‐profile cases have concerned the refusal to supply emergency hormonal contraception, which will serve as an example in this article. I propose that the pharmacy profession's policy on conscientious objections should be altered slightly. Building on the work of Brock and Wicclair, I argue that conscientious refusals should be acceptable provided that the patient is informed of the service, the patient is redirected to an alternative source, the refusal does not cause an unreasonable burden to the patient, and the reasons for the refusal are based on the core values of the profession. Finally, I argue that a principled categorical refusal by an individual pharmacist is not morally permissible. I claim that, contrary to current practice, a pharmacist cannot legitimately claim universal exemption from providing a standard service, even if that service is available elsewhere.     

Defects tracking matrix for mass customization production based on house of quality

The vision of mass customization has driven a movement toward low volume, high variety mass customization production (MCP) at low price. However, defect identification and defect tracking in such systems are extremely difficult because of the frequent reconfiguration needed by the number of different part types and the interruption of the information flow about quality with each reconfiguration of the system. It is important to quickly rebuild quality information flow with MCP system’s reconfiguration synchronously. This paper introduces a defect tracking method based on Quality Function Deployment for every MCP system module. A defects tracking matrix (DTM) based on the House of Quality directly connects manufacturing technologies with quality defects inside a MCP module. Each MCP reconfiguration requires the DTMs’ rearrangement and DTM-chain is proposed. A dynamic reconstructing algorithm synchronizes the DTM-chain with each MCP reconfiguration. A case study demonstrates the usefulness of the DTM and DTM-chain.     

Family Planning Services for Adolescents and Young Adults

If we are to influence the numerical trends of venereal disease and of unwanted pregnancies in the young, family planning services should be made easily available to them. To encourage the widest possible and most effective use of such services requires that health professionals openly endorse their ready availability. They must foster non-judgmental attitudes, however unorthodox patient life styles may be, and provide the young with opportunities to explore their own sexual behavior.The Youth Clinics of the Department of Community Health Services in Los Angeles are designed to meet both the immediate therapeutic and preventive health needs of our patients. Contraceptive services, abortion counseling and referrals as well as individual, group and community education are the primary pillars of our program.There is an enormous task for all of us who are concerned with adolescents to press for sex education programs, in or out of the school system, that will include adults as well as our children.     

Subunit mass fingerprinting of mitochondrial complex I

We have employed laser induced liquid bead ion desorption (LILBID) mass spectrometry to determine the total mass and to study the subunit composition of respiratory chain complex I from Yarrowia lipolytica. Using 5-10 pmol of purified complex I, we could assign all 40 known subunits of this membrane bound multiprotein complex to peaks in LILBID subunit fingerprint spectra by comparing predicted protein masses to observed ion masses. Notably, even the highly hydrophobic subunits encoded by the mitochondrial genome were easily detectable. Moreover, the LILBID approach allowed us to spot and correct several errors in the genome-derived protein sequences of complex I subunits. Typically, the masses of the individual subunits as determined by LILBID mass spectrometry were within 100 Da of the predicted values. For the first time, we demonstrate that LILBID spectrometry can be successfully applied to a complex I band eluted from a blue-native polyacrylamide gel, making small amounts of large multiprotein complexes accessible for subunit mass fingerprint analysis even if they are membrane bound. Thus, the LILBID subunit mass fingerprint method will be of great value for efficient proteomic analysis of complex I and its assembly intermediates, as well as of other water soluble and membrane bound multiprotein complexes.     

A Dynamic Workflow Approach for the Integration of Bioinformatics Services

Modern biological and chemical studies rely on life science databases as well as sophisticated software tools (e.g., homology search tools, modeling and visualization tools). These tools often have to be combined and integrated in order to support a given study. SIBIOS (System for the Integration of Bioinformatics Services) serves this purpose. The services are both life science database search services and software tools. The task engine is the core component of SIBIOS. It supports the execution of dynamic workflows that incorporate multiple bioinformatics services. The architecture of SIBIOS, the approaches to addressing the heterogeneity as well as interoperability of bioinformatics services, including data integration are presented in this paper.     

猕猴额叶神经元视辨别机能可塑性的研究

我们曾经提出,额叶神经元的反应,主要不是取决于刺激物的物理属性,而是与信号意义有密切的关系。为了验证这一看法,设计了两套作业,即视延缓辨别作业(作业Ⅰ)和视辨别反应作业(作业Ⅰ),对4只成年猕猴进行实验。两套作业都由1—4期组成,在第2期都有伪随机出现的红绿灯光信号,在第3期都要求动物密切注意随后的灯光信号变化。但是,作业Ⅰ要求动物对第2期出现的红绿灯光进行辨别,作业Ⅰ则要求对第4期的红绿灯光进行辨别。待动物学会作业,正确率达90％以上,在动物进行作业的同时引导额叶神经元放电。共记录作业相关神经元163个。其中作业Ⅰ98个,作业Ⅱ 65个。在作业Ⅰ中,神经元的反应多数出现在第2、3期,占该作业反应总数的70％。而在作业Ⅱ中,反应多数出现在第3、4期,也占该作业反应总数的70％。其次,作业Ⅰ第2期的神经元反应绝大多数对红、绿灯光有明显的特异性,而作业Ⅱ第2期的则没有,只有第4期的反应才有明显的特异性。本实验结果进一步支持了我们的上述看法,并且表明,额叶神经元对信号的反应主要是在学习中逐渐形成的,有很大的可塑性。     

Taverna: a tool for the composition and enactment of bioinformatics workflows

MOTIVATION: In silico experiments in bioinformatics involve the co-ordinated use of computational tools and information repositories. A growing number of these resources are being made available with programmatic access in the form of Web services. Bioinformatics scientists will need to orchestrate these Web services in workflows as part of their analyses. RESULTS: The Taverna project has developed a tool for the composition and enactment of bioinformatics workflows for the life sciences community. The tool includes a workbench application which provides a graphical user interface for the composition of workflows. These workflows are written in a new language called the simple conceptual unified flow language (Scufl), where by each step within a workflow represents one atomic task. Two examples are used to illustrate the ease by which in silico experiments can be represented as Scufl workflows using the workbench application.     

iFlora beta版移动平台软件研制

iF｜ora计划的目的之一是为提高公众对植物的认知和了解,移动设备平台软件开发是该计划的重要组成部分。因此,根据iFlora研发的总体需求,在中国植物物种信息数据库的基础上,设计和开发了iFlo—rabeta版移动平台软件。该软件在应用软件设计的基础上,针对安卓系统和iOS系统,实现对物种数据库的基本检索功能、向导式查询功能、专家互动功能及系统个性化功能,满足用户对植物数据快速检索及物种鉴定的需求。在此基础上,探讨了植物检索特征库和图片特征库的建设思路,为iFlora的总体目标实现奠定基础。     

Experimental strategies for the analysis of D-amino acid containing peptides in crustaceans: a review

Detection of D-amino acids in natural peptides has been, and remains a challenging task, as peptidyl isomerization is a peculiar and subtle posttranslational modification that does not induce any change in primary sequence or in physicochemical properties of the molecule such as molecular mass or pI. Therefore, the presence of a D-amino acid residue in a peptide chain is generally transparent to classical methods of peptide analysis (electrophoresis, chromatography, mass spectrometry, molecular biology). In this article, we will review the various experimental strategies and analytical techniques, which have been used to characterize and to study D-amino acid containing peptides in crustaceans.