I was happy to attend the event “Smart Customization” in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, on March 23rd. What is Smart Customization? It stands for an efficient and effective delivery of customer solutions.
Event was organized by Microcentrum. It contained a variety of presentations concerning adoption of smart customization. I also attended an interesting panel discussion, led by a doctoral researcher Maren Vos. Speakers were explaining why they are transforming towards smart customization and how they are doing this.
Excel vs PLM…?
There are two drivers often heard for smart customization – doing less engineering-to-order work, and having a more optimized engineering department.
In general, I was a little surprised by the lack of PLM concept, and the amount of using Excel to fill the PLM gap… It seems that Roima has some serious work to do in the Netherlands!

How to deliver Smart Customization

Maren Vos explained us four ways to deliver smart customization:

1. Standardized integration
2. Engineer-to-order
3. Mass customization
4. Tailored configuration

The ‘tailored configuration’ was, not only to me, but for quite a few attendees a lesson to be learned. Tailored configuration means: customer specific solutions, high level of modularity – but also flexibility. Parts of the design are being engineered for, or together with, the customer.
If you would like to know more about smart customization, and what benefits it could bring to your company, please contact Roima Intelligence. We are here to help you!