A Research On System Design For Service Mass Customization

Mass customization provides an effective way to solve the fundamental contradiction between efficiency and customization in operations management. However this revolutionary operation model has been applied mainly in the manufacturing regime while very few could be found in the service sector. This also reflects the status in the academic regime. The existing researches on mass customization have been mainly focused on manufacturing operation and formed a basic theoretical framework. Very few of them have touched the services. The only existing service-related researches stay still in the phase of conceptual discussion and strategic thinking or applications into a specific industry, lacking of systematic and insight view. The paper intends to apply the theory of mass customization into the service operations and achieve theoretical progresses in service system design. And practically the paper aims to providing guidelines for the actual service operation in coping with the conflict between efficiency and customization. The research focus of the paper anchors on the design of service system that is the core of the service operation. Hence this is an issue of "How", namely how the service system of mass customization is constructed.The paper builds up the theoretical basis by re-thinking the mass customization theory in the light of differences and relations between service and manufacturing products. This leads to the construction of the general framework for service system design for mass customization, namely optimizing the service system at the level of both narrow and broad meaning from the view of integration of the two dimensions of production: product and process. Modularity is adopted to conduct the optimization in product dimension to form a modular system based on service functions. This functional module system is then deployed to the "real" service system for identification and optimization of their spatial and time features, thus we finish the optimization in process dimension and form a narrow-meaning service system for mass customization. Afterwards a system of broader meaning based on value chain is then constructed as another way for product-dimension optimization. (1) In the product dimension, the paper conducts the modularity of service system with consideration of the feature "product is process" held by services. By utilizing the methods of system engineering and computing modeling we decouples the service system from the function perspective and proposes a basic framework of modularized functional service system which was made up of modules at three levels, including basic modules, integrated modules and system function modules. (2) In the process dimension, the paper makes discussions on optimization of time and spatial structure in service system with special concern on decoupling of service system and decision-making on service postponement point. The paper proposes the basic conceptual model for decision on decoupling front and back stage for mass customization and principles and methods for deployment of the modules in both front and back stage by considering their characteristics respectively. Furthermore the concept of "middle stage" and decision on "middle or back stage" are also suggested. In the time structure, the concept and selection of service postponement point are discussed and the point of customer contact is regarded as appropriate one for achieving postponement in service process. And a model is then set up for decision-making of the service postponement point aiming to mass customization.(3) The optimization in product dimension for mass customization could be also conducted by breaking through the limit of service system of narrow meaning and seeking for more efficiency and low costs in a broader scope. Based on theories of economics and core competences the paper explores the relationship between mass customization and outsourcing of service modules and proposes the model of decision-making on outsourcing content. Furthermore a conceptual model for service system of broader meaning leading to mass customization is provided after an analysis on classification of outsourcing relationships. Other related issues such as the interfaces connecting organizations and their standards and the packaging of modules are also studied. (4) Finally the suitableness of the above theoretical results is verified in a multi-case study in catering industry.The research intends to achieve progresses in the following aspects: (1) Comparing to previous researches focusing on the contents of service product while ignoring the service process, the paper studies the mass customization issues from the standing point of integrating both service contents and process, which reflecting the characteristic of "product is process" in service sector. (2) The paper takes an innovative view of the service design research by applying the concept of mass customization into the design of service system and providing solutions to the contradiction between efficiency and customization. A systematic framework for service system design based on mass customization is also proposed, which is conducting the optimization of service system at the level of both narrow and broad meaning from the perspective of integrated two dimension of production with consideration of key features of service products. This is achieved by deploying the modules that have been attained through decoupling functionally the system, into the "real system" thus for a system integration. This avoids the unnecessary complexity and is more suitable for the services with an integrated nature of product and process.(3) There also are some contributions in time and spatial optimization of the service system. In the spatial dimension, based on a detailed review and a new discussion of the influences on system efficiency caused by customer contact and decoupling of front-stage and back-stage, the paper proposes a model for decision-making on decoupling front and back stages aiming to mass customization. In the time aspect, the research proposes the concept of service postponement point based on customer contact point in service provision. A model to describe the influential factors on decision of the point is built up and the method to identify the modules for pre-fabrication is also proposed.