大规模定制作为木材家具竞争策略外文翻译.doc

大规模定制作为木材家具竞争策略外文翻译 外文翻译原文Mass customisation of wood furniture as a competitive strategyMaterial Source: International Journal of Mass Customisation Author: Torsten Lihra ,Urs Buehlmann, Robert Beauregard Abstract: The existence of some segments of the US furniture industry is threatened by imports from offshore countries.Mass CustomisationMCis discussed as a competitive strategy for US furniture manufacturers to offset their intrinsic production cost disadvantage. Examples from four domestic furniture industry subsectors are used to propose a possible correlation between the level of productcustomisationMCoffered and their success in the market.The US kitchen cabinet industry was found to offer the highest level of MC of all subsectors analysed.Interestingly,at the present time,the kitchen cabinet industry is not heavily affected by offshoreimports.The wood household furniture industry,on the other hand,was ranked last in regard to MC and was also the one most heavily affected by offshore imported furniture.The study indicates that MC can be used as a successful business strategy for domestic producers competing with low-cost offshore manufacturers. Keywords: Mass Customisation;MC;furniture;business models; furniture manufacturer;survey market;globalisation;industrial engineering;United States;leanmanufacturing;US. Successful competition from low-labour-cost countries has led to serious downsizing in the US furniture industryBuehlmann et al.,2004;Hilsenrath and Wonacott,2002 despite a favourable market environment for furniture over the past few years.While the North American furniture market is predicted to continue its growth at a moderate pace based on demographics and income predictions ofthe US populationSchuler and Buehlmann,2003,uncertainty about the success of the domestic industry exist. Low-cost offshore countries enjoy a significant price advantage in the US market,but price is not always the main sales argument to satisfy end-user needs and aspirations. Customisation of the product,pre-andpost-sales service,and delivery time influence consumers buying decisions as well.Schuler and Buehlmann2003forecast an increasing market share of customised products in the decades to comeFigure 1. Mass CustomisationMC,for a variety of reasons,is considered a promising strategy for domestic manufacturers to successfully compete in the futureBuehlmann,2004.While standardised,mass-produced furniture is made more cheaply at similar or better quality in low-cost offshore countries,customised furniture gives producers who are close to the customers a sustainable competitive advantage.Therefore,the domestic furniture industry should be aggressive in exploring and implementing opportunities to manufacture mass-customised furniture.The objective of this study was to review the concepts of MC related to furniture and to assess the furniture manufacturersopinions towards these concepts of its potential as a profitable business strategy.In fact,the paper hypothesises that the level of MC offered by furniture industry subsectors is correlated with the loss of market share of domestic manufacturers to lower-cost offshore producers. Stanley M.Davis in 1987 introduced the termmass customisationin his book Future PerfectDavis,1987.He described MC as a trend towards the productionand distribution of individually customised goods and services for mass markets.Pine1993 considers MC as the historical successor of mass production while Kotha1995sees it as a system that may co-exist with mass productionFor practical reasons,MC is closely linked to Just-in-TimeJITproduction,as customised products can be sold only to the particular customer who ordered it.Taxonomies for MC and manufacturing without finished goods inventories are proposed by numerous authorsAmaroetal.,1999;Gilmore and Pine,1997;Lampel andMintzberg,1996.Montreuil and Poulin2005proposed a personalisation framework containing eight levels,whose frame work was adapted for the furniture manufacturingindustryFigure 2.It proposes the following categories: 1.Popularising?the mass producers solution to customisation,offers a limited number of furniture collections or furniture items that can be stocked by the retailer. Focus on evolving the popular product mix in line with evolving customer needs. These items are sold off-the-shelf and are often positioned at the low end of thefurniture price structure. 2.Varietising?has the objective to offer a broader range of furniture models covering a wide range of customer needs.Retailers pick those they want to offer off-the-shelf and rely on quick delivery from the distribution network for fast replenishment.Most often,variety is achieved with relatively simple changes to the standard product line,such as adding additional colour options or furniture items to a furniture collection. 3. Accessorising?refers to the production of standard core modules that may be personalised by adding accessories from a specified set of options.Particular types of finishing are also considered as an accessory.Final assembly of accessorised products is performed either by the customer,the retailer or the manufacturer. 4.Configuring?offers end-users the opportunity to design furniture from a set of standard components or modules.Configuring may be performed directly by the end user through the use of software tools and samples or it may be realised with assistance of trained sales representatives. 5.Tailoring?product designed/engineered to customer needs.The customer is closely involved in the product specification and realisation process.It removes the strict adherence to a pre-defined set of components.However,limits are defined as boundaries of what can be manufactured efficiently.Tailoring may be offered to end users or to retailers.Furniture manufacturers often offer tailored,exclusive collections to major retail accounts 6.Servicing?refers to assisting the customer in developing a complete homeroom furnishing concept.Within this concept,furniture may be personalised by any of the seven other options of the model.In addition to the desired furniture,the end user gets the service of a professional designer to add other furniture, accessories,mouldings,colours,or wall paper to match his particular taste or interests.The furniture manufacturer is part of a network of home furnishing producers that offer a complete range of products 7.Adjusting?product adjusted to customer needs after usage.The product has to be adaptable to offer options to allow for adjustments.An example for adjusting would be a baby crib where side rails may be used as head and food panels for a twin size bed when the baby has grown up.Adjusting may be integrated to create an evolutional furniture iteme.g.,adjustable office chairs 8.Monitoring?refers to the ongoing gathering of data regarding the evolution of the needs of a customer.The objective is to know when to suggest new products or services to a customer.For the furniture industry,this could mean to find the moment in a customers life when new furniture that fit the customers evolving lifestyle better,might be sought for. The concept of product platformsVan Vuuren and Halman,2001is strongly related to accessorising and configuring.The authors point out that the underlying logic of a product platform consists of three aspects:1modularity,2standard interfaces for assembling and3design standards that the modules conform to.Product platforms may be considered as enablers for accessorising and configuring. It has to be pointed out that the presented furniture import data includes finished products only.Furniture component and raw material imports are not captured by these numbers. In regard to MC it is worthwhile to contrast two subsectors,the wooden household sector versus the kitchen cabinet sector.The former is loosing market share on a large scaleby now,more furniture are manufactured outside the USA than inside,while the latter seems to maintain imports successfully at a low level.Indications exist that MC adaptation of those two industries are one reason for the difference of the market share held by the domestic producers.Indeed,household furniture is sold from inventory with little to no customisation while kitchen cabinet manufacturers make a completely different value proposition to their customers.Different cabinet modules may be configured according to individual customersneeds.Then,the kitchen is made-to-order and sent to the customers home for installation at a predetermined date.Wood household furniture consists of individual furniture pieces.These items are generally not fitted into a given space and manufacturers had less pressure to develop component standardisation and product modularity.This lack of standardisation and modularity is today a major barrier to the development of customisation solutions. Exposed to global competition and increasing imports from low labour cost countries,North American furniture manufacturers have to revise their business model.Analysis of secondary data showed that not all furniture industry sectors have been affected by imports at the same level.Domestic wood household furniture production in the USA seemed to be weak in regard to their global competitiveness.The US kitchen cabinet industry facing a slight increase of imports took advantage from a growing demand and controlled the domestic market.The upholstered furniture and wood office furniture sectors are both less affected by imports when compared to wood household furniture, but they control the domestic market less than the kitchen cabinet industry.It was pointed out that MC might be a potential strategy to increase the value offer of North American manufacturers,thus strengthen their market position.A MC taxonomy adapted to the furniture industry was proposed by the authors.That taxonomy describes eight levels of MC.Five being pre sales customisation levels and three being after sales levels.A survey of 19 furniture manufacturers and three furniture industry related companies was conducted to assess the state and potential of MC as perceived by manufacturers.Respondents ranked the kitchen cabinet industry first and the household furniture industry last in regard to MC.This supports the hypothesis that MC had a positive impact on domestic market strength of those industry sectors. Implementation of MC was perceived as an important challenge.Changes in the production system to become more lean and flexible,changes of a company culture that was used to mass production,and supply chain management were pointed out by the respondents to be the most important challenges in MC implementation.In order to implement MC,the wood household industry has to introduce component standardisation and product modularity.Furniture manufacturers seemed to be disconnected from end users.They got little or no direct feed back about end users needs.Retailers control the relationship with end users and manufacturers rely on retailer information to get end user needs. Manufacturers perceived retailers as a barrier to MC.Retailers seemed not to see evident benefits from offering customisation to end users.This is a critical factor to the success of MC.Traditional distribution channels may be questioned in regard to MC.The development of alternative distribution channels may be necessary to bring MC furniture to the market.The internet offers the opportunity to create a direct contact between manufacturers and end users and represents a tool to customise products.Direct sales of MC furniture through the internet are expected to increase in the future.New retail store concepts adapted to MC furniture may be another alternative to sell customised products. This situation leads to research topics that should be addressed in the future such as: What levels of customisation are valued by end users?How should the end user customise furniture?What are the necessary conditions for retailers to support MC? Further research on thoseand otherMC related topics may help the North American furniture industry to develop and retain a competitive advantage and to gain market shares in the context of globalisation. 译文大规模定制作为木材家具竞争策略资料来源: 国际期刊大规模定制作者:托尔斯滕利 拉比尔曼 罗伯特.博勒加德 摘要:某些部门的存在表明美国家具行业正受到来自海上国家的进口威胁。大规模定制MC作为一种竞争战略成为美国家具制造商用来抵消他们的内在生产成本劣势的手段。举个例子,从四个国内家具行业使用多个界别分组之间的关系,提出一个产品定制MC的课程设置使他们在市场上取得了成功。美国厨柜行业提供了最高水平的大规模定制并分析了多个界别分组,有趣的是,目前,厨柜行业暂时还不能很大程度上依靠海上进口。另一方面来说,木质家具制造业在大规模定制中排最后并成为最受海外进口家具影响的工业。研究表明大规模定制可作为一个成功的经营战略竞争对于国内生产商与低成本的海外制造商来说。 关键词:大规模定制;家具;商业模型;家具制造商调查;市场全球化;美国;工业工程;精益生产;我们 尽管为家具业提供了有利的市场环境, 但在过去的几年里以廉价劳动力为低成本国家的成功竞争导致了美国家具业(比尔曼等,2004年;希尔森拉特和旺纳科特,2002年)严重裁员。而根据美国人舒勒和比尔曼,2003的统计数据和收入预测,北美家具市场预计将继续以缓慢的速度增长,但对与国内产业的成功仍存在不确定性。在美国市场上,离岸国家享受着显著的价格优势,但价格不总是销售的主要依据,以满足最终用户的需求和愿望而定制的产品,售前和售后服务,交货时间也是影响消费者的购买因素。舒尔和比尔曼(2003年)预测,在几十年内市场将迎来定制产品的市场份额。 由于种种原因, 大规模定制MC被认为在未来对国内制造商的成功是一种很有前途的策略(比尔曼,2004)。当标准化、大规模生产的家具是用在类似价格便宜或质量更好的低成本离岸国家,定制的家具给想要接近客户的生产商提供了可持续的竞争优势。因此,国内家具行业应积极争取探索和实施的机会去研究制造大规模定制家具。本文研究目的是回顾相关的大规模定制家具并评估其家具制造商的意见,对这些潜在的有利可图的商业策略的概念提出发展趋势。事实上,本文解释了大规模定制的水平是由家具行业提供国内制造商和低成本的海上生产商相关的界别分组的。 斯坦利米.戴维斯在1987年在他的书未来完美戴维斯,1987介绍了“大规模定制”。他描述大规模定制作成为一种趋势为大规模市场提供生产和单独定制产品的质量服务.彼尼1993年认为大规定制成为了大规模生产的接班人。但科塔1995把它看作是一套系统,可以批量生产。作为实际现状,大规模生产更接近于适时反应战略JIT,作为定制生产产品只可以卖给已经预定的特定顾客。大规模定制和没有完成的制造成品被众多作者苏达权等1999年,皮尼 ,耕地者1997;兰晋和明兹伯格就对企业,1996提出分类。蒙特勒伊和波林2005提出了被改编成家具制造行业的个性化架构,包括八层并提出下列范畴: 1.大众化-大规模生产者为解决所设定,提供有限制数量的家具系列的物品或家具产品都被零售商所储存。专注于不断改进的流行生产线和不断进化的消费者需求。这些东西被作为成品出售通常被定位在低端价格的家具结构。 2.多样化-是指提供一个更广范围的家具模型涵盖顾客更广泛的需求。零售商挑选那些他们希望提供现成品和依靠通过分销网络快速发货为更快的补给。更多时候,调正是为了达到相关的简单变化来规范生产线。如添加额外的色彩选择或家具物品用于家具收藏。 3.附件-涉及到生产标准的核心模块通过增加个性化附件成为一组特定的选择。特定类型的完成也被视为一种附件。附件产品的组装,最后不仅是由顾客、零售商或者厂家来执行。 4.配置-给最终用户提供从设计的家具标准元件到模块的机会。配置可被最终用户通过可使用的软件和样品来直接设计,也可以与训练有素的厂商代表进行联系获取帮助。 5.剪裁-产品的设计/施工是根据客户的需求.客户可以密切参与产品规格和实施进程. 它除去了一贯坚持用一套预定义的部件. 通常,限制定义为:我们可以有效生产的边界。剪裁,可提供给最终用户或零售商。家具制造商常常提供量身定做的且单独收藏主要的购物帐户。 6.维修-是指帮助客户不断实现一个完整的家庭室家具的概念。在这个概念中,家具可以更个性化通过任何一个客户选择的模型。除了设计好的家具外,最终的用户得到专业设计师提供加入其家具设计的服务,附件,模具,颜色,或墙纸来配合他独特的口味和兴趣。家具制造是家具生产商提供一系列完整的产品的一个网络家庭组成的一部份。 7.调整化-产品可根据客户使用后的需求来调整。产品必须变通的提供所允许的调整。例如当婴儿长大的时候将婴儿床的侧护栏改为一个双尺寸床的头和餐桌。调整可能会整合创造成一个高级家具产品(可调的办公椅)。 8.模具-是指目