Dear Elaine,
The first impression being that this is a customer driven crash test were
you make the crash before the buy by the ordering agent having Micro$oft
involved I have some serious comments too.
I believe automakers today only produce to order. The orders are placed by
the car dealers or importers in different countries. This means the dealer
makes a good, even educated guess and by modern logistic principles then
tries to sell it all before it hits the dealers shop. The cars in the shop
are samples (yes, you can have it green too if you wait 3 weeks). This
effort you described takes us closer to direct mass customisation that you
previously have done through the dealer.
So this will not drop the production numbers.
The production lines drive on rather high presentage now and you will have
a queue even if you order directly. The problem is more logistic because
you will have a shorter time to aquire the spesific parts. For instance If
everybody would suddenly want burgundy Buffalo skin seats they might have
to increase delivery time quite a bit, but you could see the affect your
desire has on the delivery time and weigh the pros and cons interactively.
Does every customer benefit from knowing what it is they are buying,
certainly. The ordering system will surely offer a lot of pre-thought
packages with sport like features for the young (minded), comfort for the
relaxed and so on. Additionally you have the options for the tech freaks
who want to have a spesific combination of charger, block, tuning chip,
suspension and light brakes for saving weight (and the possibility to call
them with odd names ;-) ).
But all in all at least in Europe you will have to have every available
combination approved by the authorities before making them available. So it
is back to take what we have or wait till the next yoears models. just with
a larger selection.
A complaint bulletin board made public, I doubt it. It would be beneficial
though. They do it in their magazines, in questions and answers section.
This will not mean that you Elaine could order yous idea of an automobile,
because you are far too ahead of your time. They haven't even designed your
rapid commuter yet (is this assumed too much). Instead you will be able to
cut throught the complexity of simple choises. The easy variations number
millions in a car. Alone combinations of colour of plastics, canvas and
leather make little technical difference but are of vital importance to
some aestehtichians. Through direct Internet ordering (order configurators)
you can get your combination with in reasonable time with out waiting half
a year.
This is what we customers could use in rapid prototyping. An internet
access where we could give an envelope and some properties of our part and
get an instant quote on the rapid prototype, price and most importantly
delivery date.
By visiting a couple of sites one could choose the best offer at the time.
Be it in a foreign country, different method or a spesific material one can
weigh the option with the relevancy of each desired feature of the
prototype to be built.
Sorry for blabbering/waffling so much
Martti Huolila
To: rp-ml@bart.lpt.fi
cc: (bcc: Martti Huolila MHU)
Subject: Production on demand
Just reading where Ford and Microsoft have announced a join effort aimed at
allowing customers to research, spec, and order a car on line. The new
system will allow the customer to by-pass the car lots where it is mostly
take what we have or wait, at least until car dealers learn new methods of
doing business. The aim of the process is to allow the customer to get
their choice of vehicle. Also GM, BMW and others are working on similar
systems for near term release. "Toyota has their system down to where they
can get an order in on Monday and the car out the door on Friday."
Interesting.....concept.
Does this mean automakers will only produce cars to order and will their
production numbers drop? How will production lines manage fluctuations?
Does each customer have to learn more about "automotive" terminology and
under the hood type of happenings?
Will the customer be allowed to see a complaint page or will auto-ml become
the hot news group of the year?
Does this really mean I can order my idea of an automobile and it will
still run?
Elaine
*******************************************************************
Opinions, suggestions, and other controversial matter VOID where
prohibited.
******************************************************************
Elaine T. Hunt, Director
Clemson University Laboratory to Advance Industrial Prototyping
206 Fluor Daniel Bldg. Clemson, SC 29643-0925
864-656-0321 (voice) 864-656-4435 (fax)
elaine.hunt@ces.clemson.edu
http://rafiki.vr.clemson.edu/credo/persall/persall.html
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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