The House Factory: A Simulation Game for Understanding Mass Customization in House Building
Publication: Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 144, Issue 1
Abstract
Mass customization (MC) aims to provide customized products to fulfill clients’ requirements while maintaining efficiencies similar to mass production. Although the goals of mass customization, high product variety and production efficiency, are clear, its implementation might not be obvious. Indeed, a number of enablers (solution space, modular architecture, and delayed product differentiation) are required for these seemingly conflicting goals to be attained. This paper proposes a live simulation game called the House Factory to fulfill this gap. This game aims to enhance the intuitive understanding of mass customization and how this concept can be applied in house building. Distinct production modes are simulated to illustrate the trade-off between product variety and production efficiency, and this is addressed in mass customization. This paper presents an initial application of the game as a teaching tool in an undergraduate course and also discusses the potential learning yield from it.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the researchers the undergraduate students that took part in the applications reported here. They also thank Dr. Rafael Sacks and Samuel Korb for their comments on the game and suggestions for further developments. The authors acknowledge the financial support from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice
Volume 144 • Issue 1 • January 2018
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 30, 2015
Accepted: May 11, 2017
Published online: Sep 13, 2017
Published in print: Jan 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Feb 13, 2018
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