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ELISA                
Efficient Logistics for Individualized Standard Applications
 

Logistics is confronting new demands every day. Saturated markets with extreme predatory competition demand efficient supply chains, which are finely coordinated with each other. Individual customer demand is moving into the focus of logistics more and more. The challenge to a production system ---to offer almost infinite product variations and nevertheless not to exceed the cost of a comparable mass product --- is enormous. The concept of Mass Customization takes up this problem. In order to quickly and reliably communicate the methods of resolution behind this idea, the management game ELISA was developed, which presents a logistics related conception of Mass Customization. At the same time, it simulates how standard production can be converted to the new challenge of customized mass production.
 



Experience
Products and processes are the key to Mass Customization. Fundamental correlations are explained with the help of a selected case study. Thus, in the management game, the customer can freely chose among more than 10 million variants as well as other customized prod-uct features. Work schedules and bills of material of customized products are not available and are only theoretically known. In the given initial situa-tion of a classic production approach, multitudes of indirect information are to be evaluated and processed, which do not contribute to the value added. The players are given the task of breaking through the production paradigm of conventional mass production and of searching for new ways to deal with customized mass production.

  
Comprehend
The management game players are no longer consumers of knowledge but rather producers. By autonomously working out the knowledge, they assess and accept it as credible. The management game sets this cognitive process in motion by playing in several rounds. Every round ends with a discussion of the outcome, which integrates the player in the improvement process through the cycle:
• identifying problems,
• discussing measures,
• defining objectives.
By alternating sequences of theory and practical play, the passive communication of information is augmented by ac-tively working out knowledge. Accordingly, the sequence of the management game is divided into several blocks build-ing upon one another, which each analyze the knowledge acquired in the preceding stage and process and utilize it for solving further fields of problems.


Learn
The management game ELISA sensitizes specialists and executives from industry to the topical subject of customized production in process-oriented control loops. The clear presentation of the idea of Mass Customization helps to familiarize executives with the subject and to break down barriers to acceptance on the employee level. This succeeds by really converting a production process to the manufacture of customized parts. The focus of attention is logistical questions of produc-tion process organization. This focus answers the important questions of implementing and introducing Mass Customization in day-to-day production.
The Fraunhofer IFF in Magdeburg would like to help you further if you too are interested in a management game seminar or are thinking about introducing the strategy of Mass Customization in your own supply chain.
 
 
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