Proposal of Load Leveling Model for Implementing Mass Customization in Automobile Industry

Abstract

Along with the diversification of customers' demand, there is an urgent need for a business model to realize the mass customization in automobile industry. When the volume and quantity of orders from customers is changing dynamically, it is difficult for a maker to realize both productivity and a variety of customers' specification by itself. So, we propose a new collaboration between the maker and supplier in a supply chain structure about ”load leveling” to supplier. Firstly, we describe a framework about the cost structure in accordance with ”load leveling” to the supplier and estimate the increased cost. Specially, we formulate the volume about load leveling and the maker's increased cost. Next, we derive the total increased cost estimator in the supply chain and analyze it. Finally, we get the optimal load leveling with minimum increased cost and get some information about designing the supply chain structure between the maker and supplier to realize mass customization.

Keywords

• automobile industry
• mass customization
• load leveling
• framework
• supply chain structure