Feasibility study on product design and development via online customisation: a case study

Resumen

The paper investigates the appropriateness of virtual reality and online customisation through e-product development (E-PD), which allows the designers to utilize the internet's communication with the customers along with a great speed and global reach. The paper informs about the state of play patterns, which assist how manufacturing firms can employ advancements in information technology (IT) and the internet for product development for the successful transition en route towards the mass customisation. It identifies pertained opportunities, possible barriers for the E-PD establishment embracing online customisation and the virtual reality tools for potential enterprise manufacturing. The paper focuses on the furniture industry, which could benefit from virtual reality and online customisation features to understand consumer needs, and in turn could implement the mass-customisation production more efficiently. In particular, the E-PD feasibility and effectiveness is analysed for the office furniture segment of India. The collected data is used to examine the readiness of the office-furniture industry for adoption a suitable E-PD prototype in order to facilitate understanding of the current Indian market and moving towards responsive production. The data analysis is based on the designed questionnaire surveys and the semi-structured interviews.