Process Modularity Impact on Manufacturing Lead Time in Mass Customization

In general, scheduling in mass customization (MC) is mostly focused on minimizing possible lateness, since, as known, the production cycle times of standard products are shorter than the cycle times of mass-customized products. In order to minimize possible lateness through scheduling optimization, we can employ one of the suitable scheduling criteria such as the Earliest due date, Slack, or Shortest processing time. Another simultaneous approach how to minimize the possible lateness can be based on optimization of manufacturing process structure. In this paper, we will explore process modularity impact on manufacturing lead times and throughput rates. This paper is divided into four main parts. Introduction section describes the stated problem and motivation for research. The second part is dedicated to the description of the proposed methodological framework. Then, the theoretical case study is presented in the third section. Finally, the last section summarized the final findings based on obtained results from the case study.