Collaborative customization strategy based on platform-based product families and white spots

State-of-the-art customization strategies help manufacturing organizations to better fulfill customers´ expectation. There is a need to adopt suitable strategic options with the view to develop product variants with minimum lead time and cost. In such perspectives, platform-based product family is an important concept that supports the efficient manufacturing of a stream of product variants created from the basic platform. This approach supports the true customization strategy and especially suitable in the case of customize-to-order (CTO) production scenario, where various modules or components are added or replaced on the basic platform to bring customized variants. Specific module or feature known as `white spot´ can also be added on the common platform to bring the option to specify and manufacture an individualized product. The CTO scenario can be performed in a collaborative manner, where the corresponding partners actively taking part in the product development process to achieve potential benefits such as resource sharing, exchanging of innovative ideas and expertise, higher market segment, etc. This research investigates the outcomes from collaborative platform-based product family approach in terms of assuring higher customization and profitability.