Mass Customization: Opportunities, Methods, and Challenges for Manufacturers

CHAPTER10

Optimizing System Performance

“An algorithm must be seen to be believed.”

—Donald Erwin Knuth

Solving Complex Engineering Problems

One of the principles you learn in Lean Six Sigma is to reduce complexity to reduce mistakes. However, while this principle still holds, products and production methods have become more and more complex. So even in mass production complexity will increase.

One way Lean Six Sigma recommends to reduce complexity is to reduce product variability. But if you want to go into mass customization, you need to embrace product variability.

So while I still strongly recommend keeping everything as simple as possible, I also recommend that you don’t try to make things too simple. To some extent you have to embrace ...