ZEMCH 2019 International Conference Proceedings April.2020 | Page 452
Customer Integration Best Practices To Support Mass
Customization In House‐building Projects
Cynthia Dos Santos Hentschke 1, *, Carlos Torres Formoso 2 , Marcia Echeveste 3 , Patricia
Tzortzopoulos 4
Ph.D. Candidate, Building Innovation Research Unit (NORIE), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul,
Porto Alegre, email: [email protected]; Tel.: +5554‐99144‐7741(B.R.)*
2 Professor, Building Innovation Research Unit (NORIE), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, email:
[email protected]
3 Professor, Associate Dean for research and Enterprise, School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of
Huddersfiled, UK, email: [email protected]
4 Professor, Postgraduate Program in Industrial Engineering (PPGEP), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do
Sul, Porto Alegre, email: [email protected]
1
Abstract: Mass customisation is a business strategy that aims to make possible the production of a
variety of products and yet keep price and delivery time within acceptable limits, thus increasing
consumer satisfaction. This strategy has been widely used in the manufacture industry and there is a
growing interest in its use in the construction industry. The implementation of mass customisation
involves the introduction of changes in three different areas of the company: customer integration,
product design, and operations management. Despite the growing interest on this topic in the
construction industry, most companies that produce residential developments still find it challenging
to adapt some core ideas from manufacturing for the adoption of this strategy. The focus of this paper
in on customer integration and in the definition of mass customisation strategy. A set of best practices
that have been used by residential construction companies from different parts of the world for
customer integration and definition of mass customisation strategies is presented. Moreover, an in‐
depth analysis of some practices has been made in an empirical study carried out in a Brazilian house‐
building company. The main contributions of this paper are related to the identification of practices,
refinement and proposition of decision categories related to customer integration and the definition
of business strategy.
Keywords: Mass Customisation; Residential; Customer Integration.
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