Abstract
Facing intense competition in market and on cost factors, technology product manufacturers who adopt mass customization strategies need to amend a series of production processes and to change manufacture automation. Complexity in mass customization arises from products size changes; compatibility in software development, fixtures design, augmentation of automation hardware and human-machine interface in product testing; as well as lead time for switching production, and so on. These factors cause the actual results of automation significantly different from those expected. This research discusses facing the challenges in automation for mass customization, how the manufacturers may combine key techniques of reconfigured manufacture system to promote flexibility by modularization, and generate the solutions to reform and build flexible automation system. This research explores the use of product and process modularization for flexible automation in a case analysis of production site scenario with planned product and process modularization. Production performance measures for the test automation are compared before and after product and process modularization. The results show that modularization can decrease 60% of lead time in product shift. Equipment utilization will raise from 90% to 95%. In addition, output rate will improve from 89% to 93%. Further, manufacture cost will be reduce 30%. Therefore, this research provides a systematic modularization solution as strategic decision support system to manufacturers in production reconfiguration and automation.Keywords : mass customization, modularization, flexibility, automation