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Selecting the best clustering variables for grouping mass-customized products involving workers' learning

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  • Anzanello, Michel J.
  • Fogliatto, Flavio S.

Abstract

Clustering of product models is an important technique in highly customized production environments, where variety is a key competitive dimension. When the goal is to create product platforms, models are usually grouped based on parts similarity in terms of morphology and demand, and integer programming has been typically used for that. However, product groupings that yield efficient platforms not necessarily optimize the operation of manual assembly lines used to produce them. In this paper, the goal is to cluster product models with similar processing needs into families, such that an efficiency of production programming and resources allocation are maximized when products are obtained though manual assembly operations. It is known that clustering results are highly dependent on the proper choice of clustering variables. To address that problem, we propose a method to select the best clustering variables aimed at grouping customized product models into families. Two groups of clustering variables are considered: those generated by an expert assessment on product features that may impact on productivity, and those representing workers' learning rate, obtained through the learning curve modeling. The method integrates the "leave one variable out at a time" elimination procedure with a k-means clustering technique. When applied to a shoe manufacturing process, the proposed method uses only 2 out of 12 candidate variables and increases the grouping quality, measured by the Silhouette Index, to 0.89 from 0.40.

Suggested Citation

  • Anzanello, Michel J. & Fogliatto, Flavio S., 2011. "Selecting the best clustering variables for grouping mass-customized products involving workers' learning," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 268-276, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:130:y:2011:i:2:p:268-276
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Fang, Edward Aihua & Li, Xiaoyi & Lu, Jiajun, 2016. "Effects of organizational learning on process technology and operations performance in mass customizers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 68-75.
    2. Almohri, Haidar & Chinnam, Ratna Babu & Colosimo, Mark, 2019. "Data-driven analytics for benchmarking and optimizing the performance of automotive dealerships," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 69-80.
    3. Casado, Silvia & Laguna, Manuel & Pacheco, Joaquín & Puche, Julio C., 2020. "Grouping products for the optimization of production processes: A case in the steel manufacturing industry," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(1), pages 190-202.
    4. Dao, Cuong D. & Zuo, Ming J. & Pandey, Mayank, 2014. "Selective maintenance for multi-state series–parallel systems under economic dependence," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 240-249.
    5. Miriam Rocha & Cristina Albuquerque Moreira Silva & Reinaldo Germano Santos Junior & Michel Anzanello & Gabrielli Harumi Yamashita & Luis Antonio Lindau, 2020. "Selecting the most relevant variables towards clustering bus priority corridors," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 587-609, October.
    6. López-Camacho, Eunice & Terashima-Marín, Hugo & Ochoa, Gabriela & Conant-Pablos, Santiago Enrique, 2013. "Understanding the structure of bin packing problems through principal component analysis," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 488-499.
    7. Soliman, Marlon & Saurin, Tarcisio Abreu & Anzanello, Michel Jose, 2018. "The impacts of lean production on the complexity of socio-technical systems," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 342-357.
    8. Qiuhua Zhang & Weiping Peng & Jin Lei & Junhao Dou & Xiangyang Hu & Rui Jiang, 2019. "A method for product platform planning based on pruning analysis and attribute matching," Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 1069-1083, March.
    9. Anzanello, Michel J. & Fogliatto, Flavio S. & Santos, Luana, 2014. "Learning dependent job scheduling in mass customized scenarios considering ergonomic factors," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 136-145.
    10. Du, Jiaoman & Zhou, Jiandong & Li, Xiang & Li, Lei & Guo, Ao, 2021. "Integrated self-driving travel scheme planning," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).

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