An Agent-Oriented Data Mining Framework for Mass Customization in the Automotive Industry

This paper introduces an agent-based framework that exploits data mining techniques in order to facilitate mass customization of vehicles in the automotive industry. Mass production practices manage to reduce manufacturing costs, however they fail to sufficiently reflect personalized customer needs and demands to the final products. Our agent-based framework aims to support the provision of more personalized products to automotive industry customers, while preserving the advantages of mass production. The paper describes the agent-based architecture and presents preliminary results from the application of data mining techniques on an initial set of user survey data.