Make-to-XGrade for the Design and Manufacturing of Flexible, Adaptive, and Reactive Products

Today, development of physical products does not only reflect the notion of tangible objects, but rather those of individualized products with associated services; which bring more value to final customers than the pure physical objects without any accessories and services. Thanks to new achievements in ICT, all product stakeholders (e.g., manufacturers, consumers, service providers) have got the possibility to more intensively interact with each other and thereupon profit from that. This novel approach has led the development features of products to a new era of cyber-physical systems, resulting in higher individualized and user-friendly product experiences, reflecting intelligent and connected products throughout their life-cycles. Accordingly, such products configure product-service systems with accompanying several merits, e.g., flexibility, adaptability, reactivity, expertise, and x-gradability. Prospective products due to their adaptable design, associated services and Avatars are able to cover a range of customizations upon the current and prospective needs of customers. Besides, manufacturers can profit from this approach for adopting new production strategies. This perspective is recommended and conceptually explored in this paper.