Product personalization enabled by assembly architecture and cyber physical systems

Personalization is an emerging manufacturing paradigm towards meeting diversified customer needs. This paper proposes a framework for producing personalized products efficiently. An approach for optimal mix of different module types is proposed in order to construct a proper assembly architecture. Sketch-based modeling, which facilitates easy model creation and modification by customers, is presented as a key to personalized design. A cyber physical system provides the platform for the collaborative design and co-creation of personalized products. A case study on personalized bicycles based on the proposed framework is presented. Such a framework enables open product realization through active customer participation.