An intelligent information system for enabling product mass customization

We propose to develop an intelligent design decision-support system to enable mass customization through product configuration using intelligent computational approaches. The system supports customer-driven product development throughout the product's life cycle and enables rapid assessment and changes of product design in response to changes in customer requirements. The overall system consists of four subsystems: customer requirement analysis subsystem, product configuration subsystem, product lifecycle cost estimation subsystem and product data management subsystem. Various challenging issues for developing the system are investigated, and a number of methodologies and techniques to resolve the issues are presented. The proposed system will allow SMEs to effectively compete with larger companies who command superior resources.