A New Engineering Design Paradigm – The Quadruple Bottom Line

The number of product variants has increased dramatically in recent years. The increase in variety has a multitude of reasons including customers’ demand for new product functions and features, different regional requirements, and large number of market segments having different needs. The emergence of new materials and technologies make new and different product features possible, and the fierce competition among manufacturers and retailers to distinguish their products, attract more buyers and secure larger markets are important drivers of increased variety. Mass customization (MC) means producing goods and services to meet individual customer's needs with near mass production efficiency without compromising cost, quality or delivery. It aims at achieving economy of scope at a cost approaching that of economy of scale by delaying products differentiation and capitalizing on commonality and similarity between variants within a product family. Personalization means that products are made-to-measure or to customers’ personal specifications. However, to achieve some measures of economy, only few product components are allowed to be manufactured to fit the customer specifications.This paper discusses the evolution of product design for mass customization and personalization as well as product variety and complexity management in the context of engineering design and the changing design paradigms.The main objective of customization and personalization is to be competitive in the market and to maintain a good market share. This significant innovation has been based primarily on achieving the traditional objectives of the best quality product, produced for a competitive cost just in time to meet the market needs in a timely manner. Beyond customization and personalization for companies to sustain in the future, they must also meet the continuous innovation requirements while producing environmentally friendly products and the socio-technical objectives, hence meeting a quadruple bottom line.