Present Situation of Customer Participation in Service Design and Production - Interviewing Tour Agent, Airline and Elevator Maintenance Company

摘要

This paper validates the assumption that customer participation in mass customization, based on modularization, inspection, and configuration, is effective in the design and production of a service. This validation is based on interviews conducted with a number of industrial companies. These companies included a tour agent, an airline company, and an elevator maintenance company. The interview results showed that the current level of customer participation is insufficient. This study concludes that there are significant opportunities to apply modular and mass-customization methodologies to support customer participation and to realize customer-oriented service design and production.