Abstract
In recent years, fierce market competition has increased the need for incorporating manufacturing flexibility into product styling. The product styling platform approach proposed in this paper offers an insight into how this challenge can be dealt with by transforming an existing product fashion into an intangible styling module with the view to refreshing its appeal. This paper addresses the important issues of how the approach can be turned into a robust applicational tool to facilitate the design of product families to satisfy diverse customer needs. The paper investigates the nature and quantification of modular styling. By capturing and analysing design experts’ opinions on product styling, the evolution of a fashion can be quantified in the form of a schema of diffusion styles. The study has also led to the development of the ideas of “Prompt Time Market Segmentation Grid” and the “Active Style Diagnosis”. The concepts are applied in an “Active Product Styling Platform” with scalable and expandable capabilities to enhance the effectiveness of conventional product styling practices. This approach can also help the formation of product style families and facilitate the development of products particularly in a mass customisation environment.
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Fung, R.Y.K., Chong, P.Y. An active styling platform for designing and developing product families. J Intell Manuf 18, 47–58 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10845-007-0006-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10845-007-0006-z