Design methodology for mass

personalisation enabled by digital

manufacturing
1,2
Mehmet Ozdemir , Jouke Verlinden2 and Gaetano Cascini1
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
2
Department of Product Development, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

Abstract
Mass Personalisation (MP) is becoming more significant to answer diversifying customer
needs, as a result of the advancements in digital manufacturing. In contrary to the modular
design in mass customisation, Design for MP (DfMP) proposes more profound changes in
product and active user involvement in the design process, while maintaining mass efficiency.
Traditional product development methodologies fall short in guiding MP, as it has the distinct
differences with product variability and the customer involvement with specific needs. In this
study, a dedicated design methodology for MP is presented, focussing on these key dimen-
sions. The proposed methodology guides the designer through the development process of a
user modifiable design and demonstrates how to facilitate the user involvement in reaching a
personalised design. It proposes a flexible and adaptable seed design architecture, and an
interactive customer co-creation process. The development of a seed design, construction of its
design space, and management of the solution space with a design solution algorithm are
elaborated. The application of the methodology was illustrated on the personalisation of
knitted footwear, and 3D printed saxophone mouthpiece. The examples show the potential of
the methodology to deal with coupled MP cases. A systematic approach to DfMP will allow
expanding MP to more products, and acts as a foundation for the customer co-creation
oriented design in the context of this emerging paradigm.

Received 08 May 2021 Keywords: Mass Personalization Design Methodology, Digital Manufacturing, Customer
Revised 12 January 2022 Co-creation, Design Automation
Accepted 13 January 2022

Corresponding author
M. Ozdemir
[email protected] 1. Introduction
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Customer Needs (CNs) are diversifying, and increasingly standardised mass-pro-
Cambridge University Press. This is
an Open Access article, distributed duced products fall short to answer these individual needs (Lin et al. 2017). Besides
under the terms of the Creative the diverse customer requirements, increasing global competitiveness and dynamic
Commons Attribution licence (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ market trends steer companies into the quest of serving individual customers at near
4.0), which permits unrestricted mass-production costs (Paritala, Manchikatla, & Yarlagadda 2017). In the past few
re-use, distribution and
reproduction, provided the original
decades, Mass Customisation (MC) has provided a solution by introducing modular
article is properly cited. and configurable products to answer the CNs better. Advancements in the produc-
Des. Sci., vol. 8, e7
tion lines and supply chains has provided the necessary flexibility for MC to provide a
journals.cambridge.org/dsj variety of products at near mass efficiency (Tseng, Wang, & Jiao 2017). Further
DOI: 10.1017/dsj.2022.3
advancements in industrial production and manufacturing systems create new
possibilities and opportunities for product personalisation. The market desire for
personalised products acts as a driving force in the paradigm shift towards smart

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 manufacturing as envisioned in Industry 4.0, where manufacturing is on-demand,
responsive and autonomous, using cyber-physical systems with advanced intelli-
gence and flexibility (Lu, Xu, & Wang 2020). The advancements in digital manu-
facturing technologies have enabled a more recent paradigm of mass personalisation
(MP), which may be considered as a step further from MC (Tseng, Wang, & Jiao
2017). MP differentiates from MC by expanding the design space, improving
customer experience and enhancing creativity and innovation by customers
(Sikhwal & Childs 2021). In the sense of product change and the needs addressed,
MP is the extreme case of MC, as it aims to cater to the specific needs in a near-
continuous design space (Wang et al. 2017). Hence, it is beneficial where there can be
value creation via exploiting personal needs and user experience, such as in con-
sumer products. Besides, ideally, these needs should be addressed efficiently and
cost-effectively. Therefore, the range of products within the applicability of MP is
also affected by the availability and capability of digital manufacturing technologies.
MP paradigm envisages changes in the basic design and structure of the product to
meet the individual’s unique needs (Wang et al. 2017). Digital manufacturing
provides the necessary flexibility to allow such profound changes in the product,
which enables tailoring products to customers with near mass production efficiency.
As the products adapt more to customers, their involvement in the design process
becomes more significant. The individual needs of the customer has to be transmit-
ted to the design effectively. Therefore, the management of the variety provided
through basic design and structure changes, and the effective customer involvement
in design should be considered while designing products for MP.
The applications of MP are still limited to date; few successful applications are
present in medical products, such as hearing aids and orthodontic aligners.
However, it is still very uncommon in consumer products, while rare applications
are present in footwear, jewellery or figurines (Bingham 2018). One of the
limitations in the application of MP is the limited design knowledge in this domain
(Sikhwal & Childs 2021). Dedicated design methodologies for MP are limited, and
the majority of other relevant design methodologies are based on product family
design and platform-based product development, which are extensively studied for
MC (Pirmoradi, Wang, & Simpson 2014). However, these methodologies consider
product development in the traditional manufacturing perspective, and their
considerations may not apply in the digital manufacturing context. Commonly,
the product variety is provided through varying modules or components on a
common platform, and each varying module fulfils a specific requirement. On the
other hand, digital manufacturing may allow the integration of multiple functions
and their working principles in even one component (Spallek & Krause 2016).
Therefore, the variety can be created by adapting the basic design of the product,
and not necessarily with varying components. Hence, the variety and commonality
should be considered differently in this context. Besides, the variety-induced
complexity is much less of an issue with the design freedom provided by manu-
facturing flexibility, which allows MP to provide necessary variety to answer
individual needs of the customers (Lei et al. 2016). A similar challenge in applying
the existing methodologies to MP is present with the standard configuration
structures. These configuration structures are also based on the modularity and
commonality of components, and they define hierarchical relationships of the
optional or common components. Since the variety is defined differently in the MP
context, the standard configuration structures are insufficient for managing this.

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 Similarly, in a standard configuration scenario, eliciting individual needs through
customer design is a challenge as well. Consequently, both the product develop-
ment and configuration processes in the existing methodologies fall short to apply
MP effectively. Therefore, the process of designing a personalisable product and
facilitating the user in its design require a dedicated design methodology for MP in
the digital manufacturing context, to effectively apply MP and exploit its benefits
for customers.
The present work aims to develop a dedicated design methodology for MP in
the digital manufacturing context. Addressing the challenges mentioned above, the
work focusses on the utilisation of manufacturing flexibility in the process of
developing a personalisable product; and an effective customer co-creation process
that answers to specific needs. The main goals are providing guidance throughout
the development process of a user modifiable design and facilitating the user design
in an effective way.
The proposed methodology explores the development of a seed design that
structures variety or commonality by the basic design features that vary through
manufacturing, instead of a modular architecture that vary through assembly.
Hence, multiple varying functions and parameters are integrated in a seed design
that is the overarching architecture that ensures such flexibility and adaptability to
user’s expectations. The user is also given more control over an interactive co-
creation process to finalise the design. The underlying idea is to let customers set
their own priorities in design decisions and hence get more design freedom for
those priorities. Therefore, the proposed methodology intends to answer how to
define the development process of a seed design realisable by digital manufactur-
ing, and how to structure the co-creation process to answer the specific CNs better.
In the first part, the methodology describes the development process of a seed
design that is used as a starting point for customer design. In the second part of the
methodology, how users will interact with this template is explained, and a design
solution algorithm is proposed to manage the interaction of the user with the
design, to solve coupled design cases and to automate obtaining personalised
designs. This bases on the real-time interaction of the users with a dynamic design
space that updates with each user decision.
The proposed methodology contributes to design for MP by presenting a
systematic way to personalise products in a mass manner. With a structured and
systematic approach, the application of MP may be broadened to a wider range of
consumer products. The methodology exploits the design freedom provided by
manufacturing flexibility to answer specific CNs. In the following sections, first,
background information on MP and relevant design approaches are presented.
Then the proposed MP framework, the seed design development, and personalised
design solution processes are explained. Finally, the proposed methodology is
illustrated over saxophone mouthpiece and knitted footwear personalisation
applications.

2. Background
Product differentiation to gain leverage in the market is not a new approach. Age-
old artisanal practice of tailor-made products is an initial example. In mass
production, this appears as market segmentation of products, where usually a
single product is offered in each market segment. MC classifies customers into

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 different segments and cluster the needs of the customers in the same market
segment. Then, according to these clustered needs, customers are offered different
product configurations within a predefined product family (Tseng, Jiao, & Mer-
chant 1996). However, the limited variety of design options in MC often con-
straints answering CNs (Sikhwal & Childs 2021). In MP, CNs are fulfilled at the
personal level. The basic product design and features may change to provide
unique products tailored to each individual (Tseng, Jiao, & Wang 2010). It is also
important to point out the difference of personalisation and MP. Product person-
alisation dates long back to artisanal made-to-order products. The craftsmanship
and additional labour of this process naturally result in a high price tag. Whereas,
MP is about affordable personalisation, which makes it an interesting and viable
strategy for businesses (Kumar 2007).
As the level of change in the product differs, the CNs addressed by different
mass market strategies change as well. The CNs can be categorised as generic and
specific needs. In mass production, generic CNs of a market segment are identified,
and relatively important needs for the majority are implemented into the product
(Ulrich & Eppinger 2012). MP on the other hand, primarily addresses the specific,
mainly affective and cognitive, needs. Besides the informed customer decisions,
unexpected needs of individuals are exploited (Zhou, Ji, & Jiao 2013). By giving
customers an active and direct role in the design process, MP may meet CNs
effectively (Sikhwal & Childs 2021).
The needs that MP addresses are not only related to the product, but also to the
experience of the personalisation process. Since in MP, customers actively take part
in the design process, by co-creating a personal product (Wang et al. 2017). The
product is unfinished when the customer involves, and the unknown and changing
customer requirements necessitate an agile approach for MP (Aheleroff et al.
2019). The real-time interaction of the customer with the design is necessary in
the development, and this also contributes to the experience and satisfaction
(Kumar 2007; Zhou, Ji, & Jiao 2013). Aheleroff et al. (2019) also pointed out the
importance of the real-time interaction in terms of informing the customer of any
extra cost associated with a product specification. This co-creation activity is also a
value creation process, via both utilitarian and hedonic innovation. Besides the
augmented usability value of the product, there are also sensorial, emotional and
symbolic values contribute to the user experience (Zheng et al. 2017). Zhao et al.
(2019) also suggest that a co-creation approach may increase perceived usefulness,
enjoyment and satisfaction. The advanced customer participation also requires MP
to be considered not only from a product development perspective, but also to be
handled as a service design task (Hsiao et al. 2015).
MP aims for a market of one, and it relies more on value creation than
efficiency. However, there is a limit of the created value outperforming the cost.
Previous research confirms that personalisation indeed adds value for customers;
however, their willingness to pay for this added value is up to 30% more compared
to mass-produced counterparts (Boër & Dulio 2007; Abdul Kudus 2017). There-
fore, the mass efficiency is still needed to be sustained. The major cost drivers of MP
are the design personalisation process, and manufacturing. The flexibility of digital
manufacturing is a prerequisite for MP, while automation of design personalisa-
tion is a major necessity to achieve mass efficiency.
Moving from mass production to MP, each new paradigm takes forward the
concept of the previous and requires more responsive manufacturing systems

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 (Hu 2013). MC paradigm mainly relies on the traditional mass production
methods, and flexibility in the supply chain and assembly processes allows different
product configurations (Chen & Tseng 2007). It bases on the modularity and
commonality of products to provide variance for customer (Albers et al. 2019). In
MP, the flexibility needed is at the lowest level of manufacturing. Industry 4.0
introduces information and communication technologies into manufacturing to
develop smart factories with intelligent and adaptable processes. The Industry 4.0
roadmap includes the ability to produce affordable and highly personalised prod-
ucts with reasonable lead-time (Aheleroff et al. 2019). The envisioned smart
manufacturing enables mass personalised production with highly flexible pro-
cesses (Gerrikagoitia et al. 2019). Lu, Xu, & Wang (2020) describe smart manu-
facturing as ‘fully-integrated, collaborative and responsive operations that respond
in real-time to meet changing demands and conditions in the factory, in the supply
network, and in customer needs via data-driven understanding, reasoning, plan-
ning, and execution of all aspects of manufacturing processes, facilitated by the
pervasive use of advanced sensing, modeling, simulation, and analytics technologies’.
Digital manufacturing technologies are key components of the smart manufac-
turing paradigm for data-driven and flexible production. Digital manufacturing
includes both additive and substractive methods that are controlled with com-
puter-based systems integrating processes such as CAD, simulation, visualisation
and analytics (Chong, Ramakrishna, & Singh 2018). The value of digital manu-
facturing becomes more evident as the product, and its manufacturing, gets more
complex (Paritala, Manchikatla, & Yarlagadda 2017). Changes in product are at the
basic design level in MP, which makes digital manufacturing an essential enabler.
Hence, the design considerations should also be accordingly to integrate design
and manufacturing seamlessly. From the Industry 4.0 perspective, although smart
factories can support personalised products with efficiency, to completely exploit
the benefits, products should be designed for smart manufacturing (Marcus
Vinicius Pereira Pessoa 2020).

2.1. Design for MP

MP is often considered in the same context as MC for design approaches. However,
as outlined previously, there are specific challenges, and points of attention,
emerging with the MP paradigm. Understanding these challenges, and catering
to the product development accordingly, is crucial to design for MP (DfMP). DfMP
should consider all key dimensions of MP in connection during the product
development process. Bingham (2018) points out the lack of method and concep-
tual framework to generate personalised designs and effective interaction with
digital manufacturing.
Most of the DfMP literature are rather descriptive frameworks. As one of the
earliest works on DfMP, Tseng, Jiao, & Wang (2010) proposed a technical
framework composed of customer, functional, physical, process and logistics
domains. They suggest connecting these domains by utilising a what-how map-
ping. The customer domain contains known and latent needs, which are translated
into functional requirements (FRs) in the functional domain via customer co-
creation. A product ecosystem is also defined within the functional domain, which
acts as a design space for the customer. Zheng et al. (2017) proposed a similar
approach for the definition of design domains, but in an adaptable open

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 architecture product platform. In their framework of a personalised product
configuration system, customers, original equipment manufacturers (OEM), and
companies are three stakeholders in the process, in which OEMs and open
architecture product platform are at the centre. Sikhwal & Childs (2021) also
proposed a product ecosystem including an open hardware platform, personalised
modules and active customer participation. In this case, a web-based system
facilitates the user design, while the product is produced by standard part manu-
facturers and personalised module vendors. Kumar (2007) suggests that real-time
customer interaction with the design space would allow more reliable measure-
ment of customer satisfaction. Zhou, Ji, & Jiao (2013) highlighted the importance
of obtaining the latent needs and processing them in real-time in design and
solution spaces. They also proposed a DfMP framework focussing on affective and
cognitive needs elicitation. There are also other perspectives on DfMP frameworks.
Hsiao et al. (2015) proposed a service design approach, proposing a model between
customer, service platform and service provider. Largely focussing on the customer
journey, they also include a customer satisfaction evaluation as a final phase. Zheng
et al. (2017) suggested a user experience-based MP development, based on value
creation via use generation and meaning delivery. They proposed a circular
framework between UX, cyber and physical models.
The design for MC bases on product family and platform design method-
ologies. A product family is a set of products that share some common
components and functions, which is called a product platform. The variety
among the product family is provided by the modularity of components
interfacing the product platform (Pirmoradi, Wang, & Simpson 2014). While
commonality among the product family provides cost savings and standardisa-
tion, variety allows covering the needs of more customers (Albers et al. 2019).
The effort in product family design is to find an efficient trade-off between these
two conflicting terms (Fixson 2007). There is also an effort to adapt product
family approach for personalisation by introducing personalised modules as a
third kind, in addition to product platform and varying modules. The persona-
lised modules are produced customer-specific for each order and combined with
the platform and variant modules. They also share a standard interface with the
modular architecture, and they are decoupled as far as possible from other
components for the ease of configuration process (Greve et al. 2017). Another
type of modules is a scalable one, which is similar to personalised modules, but a
more primitive version. A scalable module provides variety by stretching or
shrinking some of its parameters within a continuous range or discretely (Gauss,
Lacerda, & Cauchick Miguel 2021). Same as personalised modules, scalable
modules are also decoupled as far as possible, and remain at the bottom of
the configuration hierarchy. Both of these type of modules may provide a certain
degree personalisation to the product. However, they are still considered in a
modular design perspective, as they still have standard interfaces to the platform,
and functionally and structurally independent of the rest. The configuration of a
scalable module is simpler, but the variety it provides is limited, though it may
be sufficient in certain cases. Personalised modules may help more to adapt the
product to the customer. However, the design of a personalised module is not
elaborate and foreseen as an individual effort for each customer; while also
considered as a separate development process from the family architecture
(Spallek & Krause 2016). Hence, this approach is valid for partially personalised

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 products, yet how to develop a personalised module for a MP scenario is still an
open question.
The majority of the product development methodologies follow a fundamen-
tally similar path from customer to process domains, and the differentiation is in
how the domains are connected in requirements, specification and solution steps.
The common process is, very briefly, identifying CNs first, then translating them
into FRs, identifying the design parameters (DPs) fulfilling the FRs, and finally
determining process variables (PV) for production. Similar processes are demon-
strated by established product development methodologies (Pahl et al. 2007; Ulrich
& Eppinger 2012). In the design for MC, the process is adapted for product family
design, by clustering the DPs serving the same set of FRs, to provide a variability in
design (Tseng, Jiao, & Merchant 1996). This involves limiting the spread of FRs, in
other words limiting the variance as a trade-off to reduce the related costs. Gauss,
Lacerda, & Cauchick Miguel (2021) highlight the lack of interaction between
functional and physical domains in the majority of product family design methods,
as the FRs and DPs are not decomposed concurrently. Similarly, Pirmoradi, Wang,
& Simpson (2014) state the necessity of considering interdependencies among
different design elements as a challenge of product family design. There is also a
disconnection between customer and functional domains, since the majority of the
methods derive FRs from existing solutions, but not from CNs (Gauss, Lacerda, &
Cauchick Miguel 2021). Jiao, Simpson, & Siddique (2007) also points to a lack of
customer modelling and integration in product family design. The variance of
design possibilities in MP is much greater, which results in higher complexity in
design specification and solution steps (Loureiro, Ferreira, & Messerschmidt
2020). The complexity arises from the variables in the customer, functional and
physical domains, and the interdependence of these variables. The main gap of
DfMP literature arises at this point of how to structure these domains and manage
the interactions in between, as further discussed in the limitations section below.

2.1.1. Design specification

The design specification process translates the requirement domain into the
physical domain. In MP, this process is to construct how each user will interact
with the design. The DPs forming a design template are identified in this step.
Using a design template as a starting point of design, customisation or personal-
isation is a common practice in MC/MP literature. In product family design, the
design template appears in the form of a product platform and a set of modular
components in a product family architecture (Jiao, Simpson, & Siddique 2007).
Aheleroff et al. (2019) defined adapting the design over a design template as the
most important and value added part of MP. Bingham (2018) refers to it as ‘seed
object’ or ‘seed design’, and describes it as ‘the starting point for all subsequent
transformations and is specifically created to allow some form of personalisation by
the intended end-user/customer’. A similar definition is also found as meta-design,
where designer acts as a facilitator by enabling the user modifications within the
open design framework (Boisseau, Omhover, & Bouchard 2018). Lipton et al.
(2018) proposed MC of carpentry products over a design template to be used by
experts, where the proposed method verifies the design and fabricates by robotic
systems. Shugrina, Shamir, & Matusik (2015) suggested a method to convert any
parametric model to a seed design for online product configurators with which the

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 user interacts in real time. The user is exposed to a few parameters to interact with,
and real-time feedback of validity of the designs and valid parameter bounds are
given to the user. From here on in this paper, the ‘seed design’ term is used to refer
to design templates that users interact with. The definitions and examples of seed
design have been highlighted by several authors, but how it should be designed for
MP was not covered.
Despite not conceived for MP, axiomatic design (AD) can support the trans-
formation process from customer domain to functional and physical domains. AD
theory brings a systematic method to the design specification process (Suh 2001).
With a top-down approach, the variables of design domain (customer, functional,
physical and process) are decomposed to clarify the design task. The domains are
mapped to each other with the reasoning of ‘what to achieve’ and ‘how to achieve
it’. According to AD, to achieve the best design solution, the independence and
information axioms must be followed. The independence axiom suggests main-
taining the independence of FRs by appropriate selection of DPs. Only uncoupled
or decoupled design cases satisfy the independence axiom. The aim is to reduce the
complexity, and thus avoid unintended consequences in the design solutions. Suh
(2001) defines the complexity here as ‘a measure of uncertainty in achieving the
specified FRs’. If multiple designs are found according to the independence axiom,
then the best design with the minimum information content is chosen according to
the information axiom (Brown 2020). These axioms are utilised at each step of the
decomposition.
Jiang et al. (2007) explored the use of AD in the functional and physical
decomposition of the product family architecture. Tseng, Jiao, & Merchant
(1996) adopted AD principles for product family design in MC, by introducing
a product family architecture, where building blocks are defined to be configured to
individual products. Marchesi & Matt (2017) exampled the adoption of AD in
design for MC, with a study on the conceptual design of prefabricated housing.
Salonitis pointed out the lack of manufacturing considerations in the functional
and physical domains of AD, and proposed a modified method focussed on design
for additive manufacturing (DfAM) (Salonitis 2016). In the proposed method,
process domain is also included in the zigzag decomposition process of FRs and
DPs to include manufacturing guidelines in the early design phase.
As MP is strongly linked to additive manufacturing, it is often considered with a
DfAM perspective. In DfAM approach, the process selection is taken as the first
step prior to the design process (Zhu et al. 2017). Spallek, Sankowski, & Krause
(2016) categorise the development processes as standard individualisation and
specific adaptation. Standard individualisation divides the product to individua-
lised and nonindividual components, similar to modular components and com-
mon platforms in product family design for MC. While nonindividual components
are developed for mass production, individualised ones are developed with a DfAM
approach. Specific adaptation is a personalisation case, first the product structure is
designed with an individualisation scope, then the design process is repeated for
each customer within a fixed solution space, where DfAM considerations are
present. However, this is not in a mass context, since the necessity of customer-
specific design effort is highlighted. Although the specific adaptation is stated as
true product individualisation, the authors underline the disadvantages of the
difficulty in developing a seed design and the lack of corresponding knowledge
in the literature. Ko, Moon, & Hwang (2015) proposed a computational approach

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 to connect DfAM with custom products. In the proposed method, the interrela-
tions between AM considerations, CNs and product features are identified using
finite state automata and affordance. Designing for AM enables integration of
multiple functions and their working principles in one part. However, this is in
contradiction with the design for variety approach in modularisation, which
structures the variety with one-to-one mapping between FRs and components
(Spallek & Krause 2016). Besides, the major consideration of compromising
between commonality and variety becomes insignificant with the design freedom
AM offers (Lei et al. 2016). Consequently, the product family design approach is
principally limited in both exploiting the benefits of AM and effective product
development for MP.
Design structure matrix (DSM) is another approach to structure interdepend-
ences between different domains (Eppinger & Browning 2012). Instead of the top-
down approach with zigzag decomposition in AD, a bottom-up approach is taken
by clustering or reordering elements in the matrix to simplify the design task. DSM
is used by some product family architecture methods to decouple the design or to
identify different modules by clustering the components (Seol et al. 2007; Li et al.
2013; Bonev et al. 2015). Yu & Cai (2009) employed DSM to show the hierarchical
dependencies among structures and design processes in product family architec-
ture, which is used in the configuration process to create product variants rapidly.
Careful consideration of dependencies and correlations among the elements
affecting design is important to avoid suboptimal design solutions (Pirmoradi,
Wang, & Simpson 2014). Based on DSM, Loureiro, Ferreira, & Messerschmidt
(2020) proposed the design structure network (DSN), a design specification
method for MP. The method demonstrates the interdependencies of FRs and
DPs visually on a network, decomposes them and suggests principles to manage
the network complexity. While being the only truly prescriptive method for MP,
DSN explains how to carry out the specification process up to decomposed DPs. In
other terms, the DPs to realise the design becomes evident, but how to define or
manage the variety is not covered. The previous studies consider the specification
process from MC or DfAM perspectives mostly, or propose rather descriptive
frameworks.

2.1.2. Design solution

In the design solution step, the requirements of a specific user are transferred to the
DPs and a personalised design is obtained. The DPs form a solution space where
different requirements can be met. To achieve mass efficiency, effective manage-
ment of the solution space for the automation of personalised design generation is
necessary. Gembarski & Lachmayer (2018) proposed an approach for complexity
management of solution space in MC, regarding two dimensions of variety and
uncertainty. The approach is based on finding a balance between CNs and portfolio
capabilities by increasing or reducing the complexity. The authors also proposed a
solution space development tool for geometry-based design tasks (Gembarski &
Lachmayer 2018). The tool aims to lay out the dependencies between require-
ments, parameters and restrictions on a matrix to support design solution deci-
sions. Skjelstad et al. (2018) introduced manufacturing considerations in solution
space management for MC to balance the customer and manufacturing

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 perspectives. They also identified solution space archetypes according to product
form, fit and function.
The variety of the solution space result in higher design complexity, and this is
one of the challenges of MP. In DfMP, the main driver of this complexity is the
coupling of the design (Loureiro, Ferreira, & Messerschmidt 2020). While this is
not a case in product family design, since the dependence between FRs and DPs can
only be uncoupled or decoupled (Gauss, Lacerda, & Cauchick Miguel 2021).
Instead, this variety-induced complexity mainly arises from increasing variants
in the product family (Greve et al. 2017). Development of algorithms and
approaches to handle this complexity may enhance the configuration process.
Multidisciplinary design optimisation is one of these approaches for reconfigur-
ation of the product family to obtain the desired performance and optimal
configuration (Pirmoradi, Wang, & Simpson 2014). The literature on how to build
a solution space and how to manage it is very limited and more focussed on
modular architectures in MC. Besides, as also discussed below, the existing
literature focusses more on manufacturing and production planning, rather than
the user involvement.
In design for MC, the product portfolio is predefined by customer requirement
patterns, and not by considering individual customers, which creates the risk of
suboptimal fulfilment of personal needs. This is the result of a solution space with
discrete options. The design freedom and production flexibility of AM enables
customer-specific designs within a continuous solution space (Greve et al. 2017).
The end-product configuration in product family design requires a configuration
structure. The generic bill-of-material is a common method to structure the
hierarchical relationships of the components (Gauss, Lacerda, & Cauchick Miguel
2021). It is defined as a tree structure with common and optional nodes to obtain
different configurations.

2.1.3. Limitations
The product family design methodologies for MC are mostly developed in the
traditional manufacturing technology context, and they propose solutions or
optimise processes accordingly (Lei et al. 2016). Hence, their considerations or
challenges are not necessarily valid for digital manufacturing context. For instance,
the assumptions on how commonality and variety affect cost or complexity are no
longer valid when AM is used. Similarly, the decomposition of domains and
configuration structure are based on modularity and one-to-one mapping between
functions and modules. However, AM allows multiple functions in a consolidated
part. Hence, the platform and modular architecture is insufficient to develop a seed
design for MP in AM context. Although personalised modules may offer a solution
to meet individual needs, they are still within a modular architecture, which
prevents exploiting the advantages of AM. Lack of customer integration and
elicitation of specific CNs are also highlighted in the literature, which is a major
pitfall for MP. Moreover, these methodologies do not consider coupled design
cases between FRs and DPs. While this is a reasonable approach for a modular
architecture, it might be noteworthy to consider coupled cases in the AM context.
As decoupling a design in this context might not be as simple or restrict the variety
significantly. Consequently, all these drawbacks reflect on the overall development
process, and it should be adapted for MP in digital manufacturing context.

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 The majority of the literature on MP are descriptive frameworks of how MP
should be on the system level, and they mostly focus on manufacturing perspective.
In terms of guiding DfMP, to the authors knowledge, there is only one prescriptive
contribution (Loureiro, Ferreira, & Messerschmidt 2020); however, focussed on
only design specification. Therefore, an overarching gap exists in guiding designers
in the product development process of the MP paradigm. Different domains
subjected to the DfMP process are similar to the traditional product methodolo-
gies, and sufficiently well identified. However, constructing these domains and
managing their interactions to obtain personalised designs are still present chal-
lenges. The lack of knowledge in connecting these domains and structuring a seed
design were previously pointed out (Spallek, Sankowski, & Krause 2016; Bingham
2018). The use of a seed design as a starting point for customer design is stated by
several authors; however, how to develop a seed design in MP context has not been
elaborated either.
The importance of real-time customer interaction with the design in co-
creation is highlighted by several authors (Kumar 2007; Zhou, Ji, & Jiao 2013;
Aheleroff et al. 2019). This especially becomes evident in a coupled design case,
where the design solution should be iterated. Existing configuration structures do
not cover this case, and also limited to the options of modules and components.
While some methods introduce personalised components, these are independent
nodes in the hierarchical structure, and their variety is not managed in the
configuration (Gauss, Lacerda, & Cauchick Miguel 2021). Multiobjective opti-
misation is one solution for a coupled case to find the optimal configuration for the
user. However, this results in an uninformed design trade-off for the user. For an
effective and informed interaction of the user and the design, the co-creation
process should link to the physical domain in a dynamic way. The literature is very
limited on this; though Shugrina, Shamir, & Matusik (2015) proposed a descrip-
tion, it is limited to the dimensional parameters of the product.
The higher complexity, due to coupled requirements or parameters, in reaching
a design solution in MP is another present challenge. While there is also variety-
induced complexity in product family design, this is not necessarily on variant
configuration, but more of a manufacturing and managerial complexity (Greve
et al. 2017). Hence, the differences in considerations is also a major obstacle in
applying design for MC methods or solution space management approaches to
MP. The increased design freedom that MP provides the user may result in a
complexity in the design configuration structure, and this requires a particular
attention.
Achieving mass efficiency is an essential aspect of MP. This is well supported by
production system automation in smart manufacturing concepts. However,
achieving mass efficiency requires manufacturing automation to be supported
by design automation as well. Therefore, how the differentiation of personalised
designs may be handled for production is rather clear, but how to reach those
designs in a mass manner is an open question.
The present work addresses the following gaps, limitations and challenges:
(i) Developing seed design for MP in the digital manufacturing context.
(ii) Creating and structuring variety through the design of a product incorpor-
ating varying functions and design features.

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 (iii) Structuring customer, functional and physical domains and to manage their
interactions effectively for MP.
(iv) Facilitating real-time user interaction with the design for effective and
informed decisions.
(v) Managing the complexity in the solution space being inclusive of coupled
design cases.
(vi) Achieving mass efficiency in generating personalised designs.
There are more challenges and open questions in MP, which are not covered in
this work. MP relies on value creation, by not only the product, but also the
personalisation process. Therefore, design of the co-creation process focussing on
enhancing the user experience is necessary. The level of personalisation or the co-
creation methods should be compatible with the product and customer profile. The
work on these topics are very limited and, hence, the challenge in customer
satisfaction with MP is still present.

3. Proposed methodology
While designing for MP, the product undergoes profound changes in an open
process where the design is started by the designer and completed by the user.
Therefore, MP development is not only designing the product, but also managing a
dynamic process. The active involvement of the user in the process, managing this
involvement in a mass manner and the complexity of tailoring a product requires a
novel approach.
The proposal in this work is a prescriptive methodology that aims at guiding
designers to develop seed designs in digital manufacturing context, and to facilitate
customer co-creation effectively to reach truly personalised designs. Addressing
the limitations listed in the previous section, the methodology;
(i) proposes a seed design architecture that contains variety through variable
design features in its structure;
(ii) structures and manages the interaction between different design domains
considering the proposed seed design architecture and customer co-creation;
(iii) integrates the customer co-creation considerations in the development pro-
cess;
(iv) actively involves customers in the process with real-time design decisions; and
(v) employs an iterative approach for design personalisation to solve coupled
cases.
The proposed methodology explains the development process from identified
CNs, and starts with expressing these in more technical requirements. It does not
cover the complete product development process, but only how to develop it for
MP. Hence, the starting point is an existing product, or a concept design.
The importance of the needs, hence product features, is also largely a personal
choice. In the proposed methodology, as opposed to the traditional approach, the
hierarchy or the relative importance of the needs, thus the priority of correspond-
ing requirements, are left to the user. Therefore, the user can reach trade-offs
between features, knowing that there is more design freedom on the primary
decisions. This is enabled by the real-time interaction between the co-creation tool
and the solution algorithm. However, the user does not have direct control over the

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 DPs, but does have control over the requirements from the product. Hence, the
design is driven by requirements derived from personal needs and realised by
the DPs.
In the following section, a DfMP framework is introduced to explain the
envisioned MP scenario, clarifying the roles of the designer and the user. Following
that, the designer is guided through the seed design development to set the stage for
the user. In the final section, design solution, how to facilitate the user co-creation
in a mass manner is elaborated.

3.1. Design for MP framework

The proposed framework (Figure 1) is composed of two phases. The initial phase is
where the designer develops a user-modifiable seed design, and the latter phase is
where the seed design is completed by each user. The seed design can fulfil varying
personal requirements (PRs) within the design space, which are realised by varying
DPs in its structure. The predefined and assured ranges of DPs form the solution
space. The design process is completed by the user, where the product is persona-
lised within the design space, which is mapped to the solution space. Hence, the
design changes are dictated by the requirements, and realised by the DPs. The
interaction between design and solution spaces, with a real-time feedback to co-
creation interface, is managed by a design solution algorithm. A final design is
generated when all the parameters in the solution space are set. The aim is to
automate the process of generating personalised products, defining the seed design
once, and then enabling each customer to complete the design.

3.2. Seed design development

The seed design includes a core part which is stable, consolidated for a given
product, referred here as base architecture (Figure 2). However, it is not a set of
common components in this case, but common design characteristics. It is a

Figure 1. Design for mass personalisation framework.

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 concept design where a seed design is built upon. The seed design has also a set of
variable features that gives to the design flexibility and the possibility to be
personalised (Figure 2). These are again not varying components, but certain
design characteristics. Hence, the seed design does not consist of platforms or
modular components, but it is more of an integral and flexible architecture that
contains common and varying aspects in its design. It includes a base architecture
and the information on how its design could be modified. The varying design
characteristics provide personalised features of the product. This section explains
the development of the variable design features of the seed design and the idea
behind.
The seed design allows keeping control over complexity, still having an almost
continuous variety, or flexibility of product offering. It allows to offer an almost
continuous variety of alternatives which help to give the customer most suitable
product according to their needs. The aim is to ensure the user a virtually infinite
set of options to maximise the fulfilment of their needs, without bringing back the
complexity that derives from the management of configurations.
MP development pipeline is shown in Figure 3. The first phase of the devel-
opment is in a sense designing an unfinished product. A seed design is developed as

Figure 2. Seed design decomposition into base architecture and variable design features, corresponding
product features and customer needs. The greyed out branch is out of the scope of the proposed methodology.

Figure 3. Development pipeline for seed design and final personalised design.

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 a starting point for customer involvement in the second phase. The process of the
first phase starts with understanding differentiating CNs. These specific CNs are
then expressed as personal requirements (PRs). Afterwards, the DPs to satisfy the
PRs are identified. Following these, the dependencies and constraints on DPs are
identified to find the ranges of DPs, and these form the solution space. The
dependencies between the requirements and parameters are demonstrated on a
matrix. The solution space is mapped back to PRs to form the design space to find
the ranges of PRs.
The decomposition process starts with only top-level CNs, and these are
translated into PRs. Then, PRs and DPs are decomposed to lower levels. Following
that, the identified levels of PRs to receive customer input are returned to the
customer domain again to be expressed in the customer language for co-creation.
In the second phase, the user interacts with the design via a co-creation tool.
The user input is translated to PRs and the solution algorithm sets the DPs. The key
point here is that as the user modifies the design having real-time feedback on the
valid space for further design choices. To achieve a design solution by setting all
DPs to satisfy the PRs, an iteration algorithm is used. To satisfy PRs, DPs are
iterated with the main objective of providing the largest design space at each step.
This results in a dynamic design space, where each user decision updates the valid
range of further decisions. The development process is finalised with a personalised
design when all the DPs are set.

3.2.1. Customer needs

Identifying CNs is an essential step in all product development processes. In the
traditional means, certain generalisations on the user data are made for each
market segment. These generalised needs are then organised into a hierarchy
and their relative importance is established (Ulrich & Eppinger 2012). It is
necessary to highlight that ‘needs’ in this context refer to any customer need or
desire for the product (Roozenburg & Eekels 1995). While designing for MP, it is
important to understand the differentiating CNs, in other terms, the specific needs.
In this case, product-specific clusters of specific needs should be identified, which
later define the extent of personalisation offer. The offerings of MP should be
unique and personal, hence while setting the personalisable features of the product,
the considerations should be inclusive of those needs. Two main pillars of MP are
increased customer involvement in design, and the manufacturing flexibility
allowing this; the extent of personalisation offering is strictly related to these.
The value presented by MP is not only about the personalised product, but also the
sensorial, emotional and symbolic values created in the co-creation process (Zheng
et al. 2017). For a better user experience, providing the appropriate level of
personalisation is important (Ozdemir et al. 2020). The level or extent of the
personalisation scenario is also related to the cost and manufacturing feasibility.
Hence, the level of personalisation affects both customers and providers, and
reaching a trade-off with affordability is necessary for both parties (Aheleroff
et al. 2019).
In this context, the CNs are categorised as generic and specific needs. Generic
needs are basic expectations of performance in a product. The generic product
features answering to these needs are contained in the base architecture of the seed
design (Figure 2). Specific needs refer to affective, cognitive or user experience

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 related needs, which are the subjects of MP (Zhou, Ji, & Jiao 2013). The specific
needs are fulfilled by the personalisable product features, which may be functional,
ergonomic or aesthetical ones. The variable elements of the seed design define these
features according to specific needs. The focus of this methodology is on perso-
nalisable features, which cater to the individual needs and desires. Therefore, CNs
in the following sections refer to personal, specific, needs.
The first step of the process is to identify the top-level specific CNs. These
correspond to very broad categories, or descriptions, of possible personal needs.
For instance, considering a case of eyewear frames, comfortable fit may be a top-
level CN. Here, comfortable fit does not say what will change in the product. It is
translated to PRs, and then these are decomposed to more specific requirements.
Then these requirements determine what personalisation options will be offered to
the user. How to identify these top-level CNs are not in the scope of this work.

3.2.2. Personal requirements

The CNs are in the customer language, and these needed to be expressed in
technical descriptions to achieve quantitative relations in the design space. In
the transition from customer domain to functional domain, the specific needs are
mapped onto PRs. Cognitive task analysis, quality function deployment and
association mapping present solutions to transfer these specific, affective-cogni-
tive, needs to PRs in the MP context (Zhou, Ji, & Jiao 2013).
A difference of PR definition in this context, in comparison to FR definitions, is
that they do not describe what ‘has to be done’, but rather what ‘can be done’. The
point of interest is exclusively specific needs, and PRs express a range of possible
requirements. Since the personalised features of the product is defined after the
general features, the product has already a base architecture. Therefore, the top-
level PRs do not state the design objective of the whole product, and instead they
state the personalisation objectives.
The product features corresponding to specific CNs may be categorised as
ergonomic, functional and aesthetical (Figure 2). Since these features are defined
through the PRs, the same categorisation may also be done for top-level PRs. An
ergonomic requirement corresponds to a personal fitting need in this context.
Moreover, while functional ones are related to the product performance, aesthe-
tical requirements are to define the physical appearance of the product. While PRs
in one of these categories is sufficient for a personalisation case, PRs in all three
might be present as well, such as in the footwear example elaborated later in the
paper. Whereas, in the saxophone mouthpiece example given later, there are only
functional PRs. The reason of such categorisation is to cater these requirements
accordingly, to structure better the design solution process, as illustrated later in
Section 3.2. For instance, when present in a given MP scenario, the prior needs to
meet are the ergonomic ones. Besides, the parameters corresponding to ergonomic
requirements are likely to constrain the rest, as they define size or shape of the
product. Such as, in a footwear personalisation case, if personal fit option is
provided, it is inherently the primary requirement to be fulfilled. Therefore, the
fit requirements should be at the top of the PR hierarchy.
Top-level PRs state design personalisation context derived from CNs. These
PRs are decomposed to lower levels, based on the DPs, to define more specific
design objectives to personalise the design. The customer input to the design in the

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 co-creation process is done on the lower-level PRs. Therefore, the PRs should be
decomposed, at least, until the level appropriate for customer input. These PRs
getting the customer input define the design space, where each PR is a dimension
with a range. The customer input is taken within these ranges, which define the
extent of personalisation offering. Since the customer input cannot be in the
language of PRs, the selected levels of PRs are mapped back to the customer
domain to be expressed in the customer language again. This last process of
defining how user input is taken is a part of the design of co-creation activity,
which is not covered in this work.
To illustrate the decomposition process, a hypothetical eyeglass frame is taken.
Some very broad CNs can be a comfortable fit of the frame and adaptation to face
shape or skin tone. Comfortable fit need can be translated to a top-level PR as
fitting to facial measures. Then the corresponding top-level DP would be the
dimensions of the frame. This top-level PR can be further decomposed to lower
levels to requirements of specific facial measures. These are then matched with
relevant dimensional DPs of the frame. Here, the user input can be transmitted to
the design through either the higher or lower level of PRs, depending on the co-
creation scenario. For instance, in case there is a process of face scanning, then the
user input is taken at the level of fitting to facial measures. Another case might be
user self measuring or using the dimensions of a previous frame, and in this case,
the user input would go through the lower-level PRs of specific facial measures.

3.2.3. Design parameters

The user input through PRs is realised by DPs in the physical domain. DPs define
the variable design features of the seed design, and they are selected to fulfil the
corresponding PRs. In the context of digital manufacturing, these DPs may provide
variety through changing certain dimensions of the product, or through varying
topologies, structures, material composition and so on. DPs should be decomposed
to lower levels until PRs can be implemented into the design. A DP can have a range
of quantities or a set of options. In the first option, the values the parameter can take
would be a continuous range, while in the latter case, it would be a value for each
option in the set.
The mapping between PRs and DPs can be expressed as a design equation,
where r denotes the in-between dependency:
fPRg ¼ ½r fDPg: (1)
When identifying the DPs, the ideal scenario is that each PR is satisfied by one DP,
which corresponds to an uncoupled design in AD. In this case, there is one-to-one
mapping, and each PR is fulfilled by the corresponding DP. Another manageable
form is a decoupled design, where the dependency matrix has a lower triangle form
(Suh 2001). In this case, PRs are satisfied in a hierarchy of least dependent to most
dependent. A similar solution is also provided in DSM to provide an order for the
definition variable values, by sequencing the rows and columns of the matrix to
form an upper triangle (Eppinger & Browning 2012). In the case of MP, the
proposed method based on the principles of having sufficient design space for
self-expression and implementing personal priorities in the design. Achieving an
uncoupled design may require architectural changes in the product. Besides, a PR
dependency hierarchy for the design solution in a decoupled design naturally

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 narrows down the range of subsequent PRs. However, customers may have
different priorities for the given PRs, and these priorities should set the solution
hierarchy while achieving a personalised design. Therefore, a user-centric design
solution algorithm is proposed in Section 3.2, along with a dependency matrix to
visualise and simplify the design cases.
While setting DPs, it is still important to aim for less-coupled design to lower
the complexity of the dependency matrix. The complexity in this context refers to
the number of PR–DP dependencies in the matrix. A trade-off between complexity
and the range of PRs satisfied is necessary to provide an adequate personalisation
experience. Another downside of high complexity in PR–DP dependencies is the
possibility of radical changes in the dynamic design space provided to the user
during the co-creation process. This may lead to a negative user experience, as the
initial state of the design space creates expectations, the valid state may lead to
disappointment.

3.2.4. Constraints (C)

Cs are the limits or restrictions on the DPs (solution space) primarily, but
indirectly restricting the PRs (design space) as well. The Cs may initially be
divided into two groups based on the phases they are applied. The first group is
used to set the boundaries of the initial design space. There are four categories of
constraints to look for, which are explained below The second is the PR–DP
dependency constraints that during the co-creation and design solution phase.
The dependencies between PRs and DPs result in a temporarily valid design
space in the co-creation process. These Cs are handled in the design solution
algorithm.
The aim of constraining the design space is to ensure that the final design is
reliable and manufacturable. This is a crucial prerequisite for automating perso-
nalised design generation. The initial and broadest ranges of DPs are set according
to the product architecture. This implies the natural boundaries of the products,
that exceeding these would be unnecessary or impractical. An example could be the
DPs regarding the ergonomic fit of a product, which would be characteristically
limited by anthropometries. The second step of Cs is the interdependencies of DPs.
This step is to eliminate possibly counterproductive or unfeasible DP combin-
ations.
In traditional product development, manufacturing considerations are in the
process domain, after the design is defined (Ulrich & Eppinger 2012). Whereas, in
design for manufacturing, these considerations are present since the early design
phases (Salonitis 2016). Manufacturing flexibility is a main pillar of MP, and thus
designing for MP largely relies on manufacturing and related variables. Therefore,
a design for manufacturing approach is more suitable as manufacturing processes
or materials are early phase design decisions, since they are related to the person-
alisation offering. Consequently, the proposed approach considers manufacturing-
related variables while defining the solution space. The third step of Cs is related to
the manufacturing and cost feasibility. At this step, restrictions regarding manu-
facturing methods, process and materials are applied to DPs, both to ensure
manufacturability and to eliminate unpractical results. Furthermore, depending
on the cost target, design solutions potentially resulting in extreme cost variation
may be eliminated.

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 The final step to constraint DPs is regarding the personalisation offering.
Depending on the CNs and co-creation scenario, the range of DPs may be
restricted again, if at this step, the DP in the solution space exceeds the personal-
isation target. An example of this step would be restricting any DP that goes beyond
the intended level of personalisation or create a very large design space, which may
get confusing for the user and lead to a poor experience.
DPs along with the Cs, form the solution space where a personalised final
design is achieved on the seed design. Therefore, DPs set the dimensions of the
solution space, while Cs define the size of it. After all Cs applied, the final ranges of
DPs are mapped back onto PRs to form the initial design space.

3.2.5. Design space

After the Cs are applied to the solution space, the consequent ranges of DPs define
the possible ranges of PRs, and as a result the design space for the user. The
dependencies between PRs and DPs are shown in Figure 4. In the dependency
matrix, r mn denotes for how DPn fulfils the PRm . Therefore, PR is a function of DPs:
PR ¼ f ðDPÞ: (2)

In case it is possible, at least in a certain range, to linearise the relationship

between PRs and DPs, PRm can be expressed as:
X n  
PRm ¼ r mi DPi : (3)
i¼1

The extrema of the equation give the maximum range of PRm . The maximum
range of a PR is established when all dependent DPs fulfil the PR. In the case where
a DP affects multiple PRs, this creates a dependency between PRs. These depend-
encies would restrict the ranges of PRs. While defining the design space at any

Figure 4. Dependency matrix of personal requirements (PRs) and design parameters

(DPs). r denotes for dependency.

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 instance, these dependencies are ignored to provide the most design freedom to the
user at the beginning. Since the range of each PR is set independently, they cannot
have the largest ranges simultaneously, as some DPs are affecting multiple PRs.
Following each user input during co-creation, the solution algorithm considers the
dependencies and recalculates these ranges, and then returns to the user interface.
Hence, the algorithm shows the largest range to the user at any instance, according
to the DP values at that instance, but this is only valid for the following choice of the
user. Hence, the PR to be fulfilled first would still have its largest range. Therefore,
the user has to decide on personal priorities and reach a desired trade-off. The
benefit here is that the user has the most freedom at any instance of decision and
can get the most out of the desired performance aspect. How this process works is
explained in the next section.
Consequently, the initial design space for customer co-creation is set by
defining the maximum ranges of PRs regardless of the dependencies. With the
formulation of a design space, the first design phase, seed design development, is
completed.

3.3. Personalised design solution

Once a seed design is developed in the first phase, it is necessary to understand how
the co-creation tool, hence the user, interacts with the seed design to develop a
personalised final design. In this second phase, reaching a personalised design
solution is explained.
The initial design space is formed by mapping back the solution space of DPs
and Cs onto PRs. When there is user input to the system, the dependencies between
PRs and DPs should also be considered. Each user input changes the valid ranges of
PRs, and thus results in a dynamic design space.
The design solution procedure is shown at Phase 2 in Figure 3. The user input in
co-creation is transmitted via PRs to the solution space. When a decision is made
on a PR in the design space, it is fulfilled by the corresponding DP in the solution
space. Afterwards, with the new state of the solution space, the design space is
updated with the valid ranges of PRs at that instance. The user is then informed
with the further design possibilities and then makes an input for the next PR. The
process continues until all PRs are decided, and all DPs are set. In the case where the
user prefers to exceed the valid ranges of any PR, still within the initial design space,
the solution space is reset, and the design space is updated to the new state. This
way, the user may get certain trade-offs between design decisions. Once the co-
creation process is complete, all the DPs in the seed design are set, and a final
personalised design is generated.

3.3.1. Clustering
DSM is a common tool to model, visualise and analyse the dependencies between
the elements of complex systems (Eppinger & Browning 2012). It also offers
suggestions to simplify the design cases by sequencing the rows and columns to
reach a systematic order for assigning a value to each variable. One of the
suggestions is clustering, where matrix elements are clustered to identify minimally
interacting subsets, hence eliminating or minimising the interdependencies. In a
similar way, to reduce the complexity of the dependency matrix, certain PRs and

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 DPs may be clustered, and considered as a cluster in the iteration for design
solution. The clustering is useful in the following cases:
(i) DPs of an independent PR.
(ii) In case the dependency is on a higher level of PR, clustering the lower-
level PRs.
(iii) DPs for ergonomic fit.
When a PR is independent, this implies that the corresponding DPs does not
affect any other PR. Therefore, these DPs can be clustered and considered as a
single element to fulfil the PR. If there is a dependency on a higher level of PR, the
lower-level PRs in its subset can be clustered and iterated as a cluster. The
clustering can be only up to the level where there is user input.
The last case is when the product is made-to-measure. DPs corresponding to
requirements of fit would be geometric dimensions. Since the requirements would
be dimensions as well in this case, these PRs and DPs would have one-on-one
mapping. Therefore, ergonomic PRs, and corresponding fitting DPs, can be
considered as a subsystem and clustered to simplify the case. Since these DPs
change the size or shape of the product, they may still affect the valid range of other
PRs. In such case, for the sake of simplicity, this dependency should be considered
as between the fit cluster and the relevant PRs.
To illustrate the use of clustering, a dependency matrix of an arbitrary design
case is shown in Figure 5. In the example, there are three top-level PRs and in the
lower level there are nine PRs. PR1 , PR2 and PR3 are ergonomic fit requirements,
and each of them are dependent on one DP. Therefore, these can be clustered to
simplify the matrix. PR4 –DP4 and PR5 –DP3 have one-on-one mapping and
independent of the rest. Therefore, these can be clustered as well. The third case
of higher-level dependency is not present in this example. For instance, if DP3 and
DP4 were both dependent on one PR, this would imply a higher-level dependency.
In the simplified matrix (Figure 5), cluster two can be handled independently for
the design solution. Cluster one is still dependent to PR6–PR7, but since it is an

Figure 5. Example clustering case on a personal requirement (PR)– design parameter (DP) dependency
matrix. The matrix on the left side is the initial state, and the matrix on the right is the simplified one after
clustering. Top-level PRs are marked with a superscript.

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 ergonomic fit cluster, it is fulfilled first as explained further in the following section.
As a result, only the remaining four PRs and four DPs require an iterative solution.

3.3.2. Solution algorithm

To manage the interaction between design and solution spaces, a solution
algorithm for design personalisation is introduced in this section. The solution
algorithm manages the dependencies between PRs and DPs, keeping control
over the complexity, still providing an almost continuous variety. In the back-
end, it allows the real-time interaction of the user with the design. The algorithm
dynamically controls the boundaries of these spaces and assigns values to DPs to
fulfil PRs with an iterative approach. The objective is to offer the largest design
space at each decision step and provide the most design freedom to the user on
the preferred design aspects. The algorithm (Figure 6) works by iterating the
DPs to fulfil the PR at each step. The fundamental principles of the algorithm
are:
(i) The hierarchy of the PRs are decided by the user.
(ii) Least possible number of DPs used to satisfy an PR.
(iii) If present, independent DPs are changed first to fulfil the given PR.
(iv) Iteration from the most effective to the least effective DP for the given PR.
(v) If present, PRs of ergonomic fit are fulfilled first.
(vi) Solely aesthetical PRs are considered last.

Figure 6. Design solution algorithm.

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 When each DP affects only one PR, the complexity of the dependence matrix
becomes the lowest, thus no iterations needed, and each PR can be satisfied with the
corresponding DP. For the rest of the cases, where dependencies increase the
complexity, the solution algorithm is applied. The steps below are followed for the
personalised design solution:
(i) In case where the ergonomic fit is a PR, it is fulfilled first. This is because of
the assumption that the primary expectation from a made-to-measure
product is personalised fit. Besides, it would have a fixed input for each
user, hence it is not a CN that the user could actively state preference.
Therefore, PR related to the fit is fulfilled first and in case of a dependence,
design space is updated, before further decisions are made in the co-creation
process. Following this, functional PRs are fulfilled where design case is
more likely to be coupled. Lastly, the aesthetical PRs are fulfilled, after the
right fit and suitable set of functions are provided.
(ii) The process starts with the user input, and a value is assigned to the
corresponding PR.
(iii) Then, the value is checked if in the valid range. If not, the solution space is
reset.
(iv) In the following step, the most effective DP for the given PR is identified and
checked if it has already been assigned a value.
(a) If yes, it goes back to the second most effective DP and repeat.
(b) If no, the DP is incrementally increased or decreased until either the
boundary value is reached or the PR is satisfied.
(v) After this iteration, the PR is checked if satisfied.
(a) If not, it goes back to the DP selection process and continues with the
next DP.
(b) If it is satisfied, the design space is updated for the valid ranges of
remaining PRs.
(vi) The same process continues until all PRs are fulfilled.
(vii) Then, when all DPs are set, a personalised final design is generated.
All DPs initially start at a median value. According to the input PR value,
they are iterated towards either the upper or the lower boundaries of their
ranges. Since the design space is in a feedback loop, the input to the PR would be
in the valid range, and the iteration of DPs will surely satisfy the PR. In case of
an input outside the valid range, the solution space goes back to the initial state,
and again the fulfilment of the PR is ensured. The operation of dynamically
controlling the dependencies and valid ranges also guarantees the reliability of
the output final design. Hence, this process automates acquiring CNs and
reflecting it to the design; and it may also provide personalised designs that
are ready for manufacturing.

4. Illustrative applications
The proposed methodology focusses on the MP of consumer products that are
realisable by digital manufacturing. This section presents two illustrative applica-
tions that demonstrate how the methodology can be applied to representative
cases. In both cases, there is an existing demand for personalisation, and both are
based on existing R&D topics that led to commercial solutions. Two very diverse

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 products are chosen to demonstrate the range of applicability of the methodology.
The first application is on 3D-printed saxophone mouthpieces, and there is a
coupled design case while tailoring the performance of the mouthpiece. The second
application on knitted footwear explores the personalisation of fit and appearance
of the product, besides the functionality. In addition to 3D printing, there is also
digital knitting in this case to illustrate the usage of another digital manufacturing
technology. Each application is finalised with an example co-creation scenario;
while in the mouthpiece application the front-end of the design and solution
spaces’ interaction is demonstrated (Figure 11), in the knitted footwear application
the back-end process of the algorithm during this interaction is presented
(Figure 16).

4.1. Saxophone mouthpiece personalisation

The saxophone mouthpiece is a product attached to the upper end of the saxo-
phone, and it is the interface between the player and the instrument (Figure 7a).
Saxophone sound is produced in the mouthpiece, by the vibration of the reed
attached to it. Hence, the design of the mouthpiece greatly affects the performance
of the instrument. Therefore, saxophone players often try different mouthpieces to
find the most suitable one for themselves. There are a range of different designs
available in the market. The choice of a mouthpiece is a very personal decision,
depending on playing habits, the music genre or the playing environment. There
are also a number of artisans modifying existing mouthpieces to help players to
reach closer to the desired performance. Thus, there is an existing demand for the
personalisation of saxophone mouthpiece.
The majority of the mouthpieces in the market are produced with subtractive
processes and finished by manual labour. Therefore, additive manufacturing
presents an opportunity both in terms of ease of production and personalised
designs. In this application, the personalised mouthpieces (Figure 7b) are 3D
printed by Stereolithography technology, due to the high accuracy, resolution,
precision and suitable materials that it provides (Ozdemir & Cascini 2020).
This example application is a summary of a previous case study of the proposed
methodology (Ozdemir & Cascini 2020; Ozdemir et al. 2021). The starting point in
this case is an existing mouthpiece, from which the features of the base architecture
are derived. For instance, the overall dimensions of the mouthpiece, how it fits the
saxophone, and how the reed is positioned are some elements of the base

Figure 7. Saxophone mouthpieces.

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 architecture. There are also some variable design features of the seed design that
provides the personalisation. These are explained in the mouthpiece DPs
section below.

4.1.1. Personal requirements for mouthpiece

The personal needs of a player with a mouthpiece can be broadly grouped as
desired sound and compatibility with playing habits. Top-level PRs for these can be
expressed as sound features and playability aspects, respectively (Figure 8). The
sound features are usually very subjective and the perception of these are studied in
psychoacoustics (Carron et al. 2017). However, the tone colour of the sound and
the loudness of it can be related to quantifiable measures (Ozdemir et al. 2021). The
spectral centroid of the sound gives an indication about the ‘brightness’ of the
sound. Moreover, the loudness of the instrument can be measured by the sound
pressure level. Therefore, two of the PRs related to sound features are the spectral
centroid and the sound pressure level. In terms of playability, two important and
measurable aspects are resistance and pitch flexibility. Resistance implies ease of
blowing the mouthpiece while playing. It can be measured by the minimum
blowing pressure required to oscillate the reed (oscillation threshold), which
produces the sound. Hence, the oscillation threshold indicates the resistance of
the mouthpiece. The pitch flexibility is the range of possible pitch modification on
the mouthpiece, and it can be measured by the interval of the highest and lowest
pitch produced.

4.1.2. Mouthpiece DP and dependency matrix

The sound is produced by the vibration of the reed, that is excited by the air passing
through the inner cavity of the mouthpiece. The parameters defining the inner
cavity affect the airflow characteristics, and the parameters interfacing the reed
affect the vibration of the reed (Figure 8). Hence, these parameters, as shown in
Figure 9, define the performance of the mouthpiece. These parameters vary among
the existing mouthpieces, and it is known that they affect certain characteristics.

Figure 8. Personal requirement (PR) and design parameter (DP) decomposition for mouthpiece personal-
isation. The PRs getting user input are in rectangles with dashed lines.

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 However, there was no evidence on how and what they affect exactly. Since the
proposed methodology requires quantitative relations between PRs and DPs, these
were identified through a set of experiments in the previous study (Ozdemir et al.
2021).
Figure 10 shows how each parameter affects PRs. These relations between DPs
and PRs were identified and quantified through experimentation with an artificial
blowing machine (Ozdemir et al. 2021). As seen in Figure 10, there is a highly
coupled case, where all PRs are defined by multiple DPs, and five of the DPs affect
multiple PRs. Therefore, it is a complicated task to tailor the performance of the
mouthpiece, and as the performance aspects are dependent through the DPs,
certain trade-offs may be needed.

4.1.3. Constraints for mouthpiece and solution space

To set the boundaries of the solution space, a list of previously suggested con-
straints are to be considered. In the case of the mouthpiece, there are a considerable

Figure 9. Saxophone mouthpiece design parameters.

Figure 10. Dependency matrix between mouthpiece personal requirements (PRs)

and design parameters (DPs). Independent DPs are shown with coloured back-
ground. X stand for dependency.

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 number of designs available on the market. Hence, a survey of these existing
designs are used to set the initial boundaries of the solution space (Ozdemir
et al. 2021). For instance among the existing designs, the reed interface parameters,
lay length and tip opening, vary within 17–25 and 1.4–2.6 mm, respectively. This is
used as a starting point to set the range of these parameters. It is also important to
note that the existing designs have discrete values within these intervals, and most
of the possible combinations of different parameter values do not exist. Hence,
there is a large unexplored space of design possibilities, and consequently, unex-
plored performance characteristics. The proposed approach allows fine-tuning
these parameters, and exploring the complete solution space to tailor the perform-
ance of the mouthpiece.
To constrain the design space further, interdependencies of the DPs are
checked. Continuing on the same two parameters, lay length and tip opening
are dependent parameters, and extreme combinations of these are either unplay-
able or very uncomfortable to play. Therefore, these combinations are also elim-
inated.
In terms of manufacturing or feasibility, there are not any significant con-
straints in this case. Since the product has a simple geometry, and the parameter
changes are at a small scale. Nevertheless, there are still such constraints regarding
the basic design of the mouthpiece. For instance, the selected material should not
be toxic as the product stays in contact with the player for long time. Similarly, it
should be resistant to moisture as it is significantly present while playing. There are
surely more constraints to these to be considered for the basic design of the
product. While the constraints here, and in the context of the methodology, are
related to the possible changes in the product.
The final step of the constraints are related to the personalisation scenario. In
this case, the users of the product are rather experts, and hence they might benefit
and appreciate the largest possibilities. For instance, if the user target was narrower,
such as only beginner players or classical music players, the parameters could have
been restricted further to avoid possibly undesired results. Once all constraints are
applied, the final ranges of the DPs are obtained. These ranges form the solution
space, within which a personalised design can be created.

4.1.4. Design space for mouthpiece

The solution space set the boundaries of how the structure of the product may
change. On the other hand, the design space includes possible PR for the product.
In this case, these are the four performance aspects. The solution space is mapped
back onto these to set their ranges. To be more specific, the DP combinations
providing the extrema of the given performance aspect give the largest range of the
PR. For instance, the highest pitch flexibility is obtained with the largest baffle
height and the smallest chamber size and tip opening. With the given DP ranges,
the pitch variation interval (flexibility) can get a value between 41 and 129 Hz,
according to the results of the previous study (Ozdemir et al. 2021). The same
procedure is then followed for all the PRs to find what can be offered to the user,
and this forms the design space. The design space initially provides the largest
ranges of PRs. But since this is a coupled design case, PRs are dependent and the
user can not simultaneously decide on all four PRs. Therefore, the user has to reach

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 a trade-off considering personal priorities and can obtain the most suitable
performance from the mouthpiece.

4.1.5. Personalised design solution for mouthpiece

This example briefly illustrates how the user co-creates the product through the
interaction between the design and solution spaces via the solution algorithm
behind. Since the PRs are very technical and their values would not be meaningful
to the users, they are renamed in the user language and sliders are provided for user
input. In Figure 11, pitch flexibility refers to pitch flexibility interval; brightness
refers to the spectral centroid; resistance refers to the oscillation threshold and
loudness refers to sound pressure level. In the user study of this example, bench-
marking mouthpieces were given to the users to understand the scale and have a
reference for their decisions (Ozdemir et al. 2021).
A user co-creation scenario is shown in Figure 11. Step 1 shows the initial
design space, where all four PRs have their largest ranges available. The first
decision of the user is to set the pitch flexibility, moving the slider to the more
flexible side. As the most effective DP in this case is tip opening, it is iterated to its
lower limit; then passing to the second DP, the baffle height is increased, and a
solution is found. In Step 2, it is seen that the design space and the default state of
the PRs are changed. This is due to the DPs changed in the previous step. In this
step, the user changes the brightness, and this requirement is satisfied by iterating
the throat shape and the lay length, respectively. In the third step, four of the DPs
are already set, and the remaining design space for the other two PRs are
significantly smaller. In this case, the user changes the resistance, and this is
satisfied by increasing the chamber shape. It should be noted that since the
chamber shape is an independent DP, it does not affect the design space in the
next step. In the last step, the user sets the loudness of the mouthpiece, and this is
satisfied by iterating the throat shape first, as it is an independent DP. At this point,
all PRs are decided by the user, and a design can be generated with the DP values at
this instance. In the case desired, the user may continue looking for further trade-
offs following the same process.

4.2. Knitted footwear personalisation

Personalisation in footwear is nothing new; it has been practised by shoemakers
producing bespoke shoes. Inherently, the cost of an artisanal product is higher than
a mass-produced counterpart. However, customer willingness to pay for a perso-
nalised shoe is only 10–30% more than a mass-produced one (Head 2012). A major
reason of interest in personalisation is the customers’ need of proper fit and
comfort. Standardised footwear with mass production results in a poor fit, which
is found to cause several foot-related problems (Goonetilleke, Luximon, & Tsui
2000). Another motivation personalisation is that footwear is also a fashion
product and provides an opportunity of self-expression to customers. Therefore,
the uniqueness and mass efficiency offered by MP is very suitable for footwear.
The proposed method is applied to a personalised footwear design case with a
knitted upper and a 3D printed sole in this section (Figure 12). The advantages and
application of digital knitting and 3D printing for footwear MP were explained in the
previous study (Ozdemir, Cascini, & Verlinden 2020). The reason for choosing these

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 Figure 11. Interaction between design and solution spaces in a user co-creation scenario for mouthpiece
personalisation. The ranges of design parameters (DPs) are shown on the radar charts on the left side; their
values vary from inner to outer heptagon, increasing towards the outer.

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 Figure 12. Example knitted footwear with 3D printed sole (size EU37B).

two technologies is that they both provide design personalisation opportunities, the
flexibility needed for design variation and mass efficiency. The given example
considers the development of only the shoe upper and the sole. In this case, the
starting point is a concept design. The base architecture contains the style of the shoe
through a defined shoe last. For instance, when the style in the base architecture is
trainer shoes, the seed design can not vary to trekking shoes. Similarly, certain form
elements, such as the form of the sole is also contained in the base architecture. The
variable features of seed design here the sizing of the sole and upper for personalised
fit; and functional and aesthetical features of the upper. These variable features of the
seed design are explained in the development steps below.

4.2.1. Personal requirements for knitted footwear

In the first step of the design case, identification of top-level PRs requires broad
descriptions of the specific CNs. For personalised footwear, these are identified as
comfort and self-expression. The top-level PRs corresponding to these are perso-
nalised fit and shoe upper properties for comfort, and upper appearance for self-
expression. These three top-level PRs correspond to ergonomic, functional and
aesthetic features to be personalised in the shoe. To also exemplify the generic
features, the shoe style might be given. The style, trainer shoes in this example, is
predefined on the shoe last design, which may be considered as the mould in the
footwear context.
Figure 13 shows the decomposition of PRs and the corresponding DPs. Flexi-
bility, weight, permeability, and heat resistance are the lower-level PRs that define the
functional features of the shoe upper. Graphical pattern and knit pattern are the
lower-level PRs defining the visual appearance of the upper. The PRs framed in
Figure 13 are the selected as convenient levels to get the user input. These are mapped
back to the customer domain, to be expressed as design personalisation options in
the co-creation process. Personalised fit and graphical pattern are decomposed one
level further to be satisfied by the selected DPs. These lowest level PRs are not chosen
as user input since they individually do not present any personalisation need.

4.2.2. Footwear DPs and dependency matrix

The identified DPs are shown in Figure 13. Yarn material, count (thickness) and knit
pattern selections fulfil the comfort properties of the shoe upper. Yarn colour and

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 Figure 13. Personal requirement (PR) and design parameter (DP) decomposition for knitted footwear
personalisation. The PRs getting user input are in rectangles with dashed lines.

knit pattern fulfil the upper appearance needs. Knit pattern is used both as a PR and a
DP. Because it has both an aesthetic value and a structural function. In this case, it is
assumed that there is a supply of yarns providing stable behaviour, and the knitting
machine is able to produce some patters that behave substantially the same.
The shoe last design can be modified for personalised fit via sizing and grading
parameters (Zhang et al. 2012). These parameters define the geometry of the sole
and the upper. The sizing is defined by the length, and the grading is by the girth
measures of the user’s feet. The length and girth values are obtained from the foot
measurements of the user.
The matrix in Figure 14 shows the dependencies between PRs and DPs. The
length and girth requirements are clustered together since they are related to fit.
The dependency between the graphical pattern cluster and the last parameters is
related to dimensions. The last parameters define the size of the upper where a
graphical pattern will be applied. This size information is a prerequisite for a
graphical pattern input. Similarly, the sizing parameter should have a value before
the grading parameter is set. Therefore, these two parameters should be clustered.
The last parameters are defined by personalised fit requirements, which must be
fulfilled first according to the method. Therefore, once the fit cluster is fulfilled, the
graphical pattern cluster becomes independent. As a result, both clusters and
the corresponding DPs are independent, and they can be fulfilled regardless of
the other PRs. However, the remaining five PRs are coupled through three DPs,
and this requires an iterative solution.

4.2.3. Constraints for knitted footwear and solution space

To define the solution space, the DP ranges go through the constraining steps.
Initially, all DPs start at the largest intervals possible for the product architecture of
the given case. For instance, the sizing and grading parameter ranges are bounded
with the anthropometric foot data (Luximon & Luximon 2013).

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 Figure 14. Dependency matrix between footwear personal requirements (PRs) and
design parameters (DPs). Clusters are shown with coloured background. X stand for
dependency.

The second step is checking the interdependencies of DPs. A simple example of

this is the limited availability of yarn colour and count options for a selected yarn
material. In the third step, process and cost constraints are applied. Since a knitted
upper is in the design proposal, the knitting parameters depend on the digital
knitting machine. For instance, the range of yarn counts that can be used is limited
with the machine gauge, and also the number of colours that can be used at the
same time is limited with the number of carriers in the machine (Ozdemir, Cascini,
& Verlinden 2020).
The final step of the constraints is to limit the DPs which will define PR ranges
in the initial design space. This step is according to CNs and the co-creation
scenario. For instance, the number of knit patterns offered is limited to avoid over-
complication for users. The boundaries of shoe sizes offered can be considered at
this step as well.
Once all constraints are applied, the final ranges of DPs are obtained. These
ranges, shown in Table 1, define the solution space. As stated before, yarn colour,
last size and grading are independent parameters and get direct input from the
customer domain. On the other hand, the options within the range of yarn
material, count and knit pattern have different effects on the PRs. These effects
are shown in Figure 15. To bring the effects to a common denominator, they are
expressed as a value from 0 to 1. These ranges are mapped back onto PRs to define
the initial design space in the next step.

4.2.4. Design space of knitted footwear

The combinations of the DPs seen in Figure 15 provide the max and min possible
values of PRs that form the initial design space. For instance, the highest heat

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 Table 1. The ranges of design parameters (DPs) for the solution space.
Last size EU38–EU45

Last grading A to G
Yarn material Polyester, nylon, spandex (PU), wool and linen
Yarn colour 10 colour options
Yarn count Nm6–Nm2/12, Nm6.5–Nm2/13 and Nm7–Nm2/14
Knit pattern
Single knit, half-cardigan rib, half and Milano rib
Double knit interlock, single-pique and crossmiss interlock

Figure 15. Normalised effects of design parameters (DPs) on personal requirements (PRs).

resistance can be obtained by wool yarn with Nm7–Nm2/14 having a single knit
structure. The sum of the coefficients of these is 3. Likewise, the lowest heat
resistance can be achieved by any material except wool, Nm6–Nm2/12, and
half-cardigan rib or single-pique structure. The sum of coefficients, in this case,
would be 1. Therefore, we can conclude that for heat resistance, the range is 1–3,
and an input within this interval can be taken. The same is applied for the other PRs
as well and shown in Table 2. These ranges shown in the table define the initial
design space. It is important to highlight here that the interdependencies of PRs are
not considered for these ranges. For instance, it is not possible to obtain both the
highest flexibility and the highest heat resistance at the same time, due to the
varying effects of DPs on each PR. But the first PR to fulfil, chosen by the user, will
have the largest range.

4.2.5. Personalised design solution for knitted footwear

An example design solution process is shown in Figure 16. The process starts with
the user’s foot measurement input. First, the available shoe sizes are iterated for the
given foot length. Afterward, the grading is iterated to match the user input with
the obtained size. At the end of this process, 41.5C is found as the best fit, and the
design space is updated with this information. As a second input, permeability ¼ 1
is given. DP selection function chooses the yarn count parameter to be iterated first.
At the end of the iteration, Nm7 is set for yarn count and this fulfils the
permeability requirement. Updating the valid design space again, now it can be

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 Table 2. Final ranges of personal requirements (PRs) forming the initial design
space.
Waist girth 217–277 mm

Instep girth 239–299 mm

Short heel girth 331–391 mm
Length 238–285 mm
Flexibility 0.2–2
Weight 0.4–2
Permeability 0.6–3
Heat resistance 1–3
Colour 10 options
Layout User input
Knit pattern Six options

seen that the weight and heat resistance have narrower ranges, since the yarn count
is set. The next input is heat resistance ¼ 2.2. The DP selection function picks the
yarn material and the iteration function picks wool as the most heat-resistant
material. However, at this point, the heat resistance ¼ 2, and the PR is not fulfilled.
Therefore, the DP selection function runs again and picks the knit pattern this time
and the iteration results in half-cardigan rib and single-pique as equal options to
reach 2.2. At this point, all DPs are set, except the two options left for the knit
pattern. Therefore, flexibility and weight have only one possible value in the
updated valid design space. The final input is for the knit pattern, and single-pique
is chosen. In case the user is not satisfied with the final output, the input for any PR
can be set again to reach other trade-offs. On this occasion, the DPs chosen are
reset, and the iteration process starts again. The final personalised design in the
example is a 41.5C size shoe with Nm7 wool yarn having a single-pique structure.
The graphical pattern is not included in the iteration, as it is independent and can
be fulfilled directly at any step after sizing and grading.

5. Discussion
The two diverse illustrative applications presented the variability of applicable
cases and the flexibility of the approach. The knitted footwear is a valuable example
in the sense to show that the methodology is not limited to additive manufacturing,
but it can be applied to digital knitting and other similar technologies. While the
mouthpiece application focussed on the personalisation of the performance of the
product, the knitted footwear also demonstrated the addition of personal fit and
aesthetics.
The application of knitted footwear personalisation illustrated how to develop a
seed design following the tasks in the proposed pipeline for an MP scenario under
the suggested framework. Comfort and self-expression needs correspond to all
three feature categories of the seed design, which is suitable to show the complete
potential of the methodology. Demonstrating the functional personalisation of a

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 Figure 16. Design solution example for knitted footwear personalisation.

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 coupled design case of the knitted upper contributes to the argument. However,
although it does allow the user to prioritise certain performance, it is limited by the
number of DPs and their options. Besides, it comes with a stable behaviour
assumption of yarns and knitting patterns. Addition of new parameters or extend-
ing their ranges would strengthen the case. Besides, the functional personalisation
might be more significant in high-performance applications such as shoes for
athletes.
An important note on the knitted footwear example is that its seed design with
two components or discrete design options of knitting should not be confused with
a modular configuration case. Here, the variety is not created by changing com-
ponents, but the design change provides the variety. The yarn parameters and knit
pattern are also not components; they are the building blocks of a single compo-
nent that provide multiple functions. Since in this case these parameters have
discrete values, all possible combinations could be considered as variants of a
module. Then we would end up with one module affecting four requirements, since
decoupling is not possible. This becomes an even more complex problem, and still
without a solution with a standard configuration structure.
The saxophone mouthpiece application illustrated a stronger functional per-
sonalisation case with a very coupled design. It is a single-component product that
delivers variety on multiple performance aspects. Hence, it is also a stronger case to
illustrate the benefit of the methodology. The mouthpiece is characterised by a
coupled design and as long as its architecture is not changed, modularisation is not
an option. In this case, the working principle of the mouthpiece makes the
necessary architectural change to decouple the design virtually impossible. More
in general, highly coupled designs require deep architectural changes to ensure
modularity and consequent configurability. On the other hand, what is proposed
here is to characterise the behaviour of the system even in the case of a coupled
design to assign the most suitable value to each DP to fulfil PRs. In addition, this is a
case where the user has expertise on the product. With the given design freedom, an
expert user may even go beyond the foreseen scenario, and obtain a design that
satisfies a very latent need.
In this work, the seed design definition flexibly adapts from cases very close to
configuration to cases that allow flexible and continuous variation of all possible
requirements. Hence, the seed design can be very simple, or very complex based on
case or degree of investment. The key point is that the aim is to make a connection
between the seed design and what the customer might want, facilitate the customer
to finalise the design and obtain all the parameters for the digital fabrication of the
product.
While constructing a seed design, the relationships between PRs and DPs may
not be immediately evident in every case. These relationships can be identified
depending on how much one can invest in the seed design development. While it is
possible to linearise the relationships up to an extent to simplify the case, it is also
possible to obtain a very precise map of how the product behaves with varying
parameters through simulation or experimentation. The methodology makes a
general claim on this, and linearisation is not mandatory as far as one can invest in
characterising the design space in further details. For instance, in the application of
mouthpiece personalisation, an experimental characterisation of the mouthpiece
behaviour as a function of the different DPs was done, and in this case the
relationships were not linear. While the experimentation might be limited by the

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 sample size; if it was possible, an accurate simulation might have provided a more
detailed characterisation. However, it is still important to note that the proposed
algorithm assumes that it is possible with a reasonable effort to find the relationship
between PRs and DPs. But it is clear that if the system is highly unstable, then it
would be too complicated or too costly to build a detailed map for personalisation.
Another important consideration here is also on the proposed co-creation
scenario. that the seed design is defined in a way that it is an unfinished product
with open parameters within certain limits. With the co-creation process, the user
finalises the product, rather than configurating it. More design freedom is provided
to the user by allowing trade-offs between different requirements. The user is in the
condition to make their own choices and priorities. In that perspective, the needs
may, at least partially, remain latent. A user may even go beyond and satisfy a need
that was not even intended to offer. Instead of a standard configuration structure,
there is an iteration process to personalise the product. This results in a dynamic
interaction with the user. The methodology includes a specific form of co-creation,
where the user, in a way, negotiates with the algorithm behind to reach a desired
trade-off. This both allows more design freedom to the user, and also streamlines
the personalised design generation in coupled cases. But, it is important to inform
the user well about how the system operates. A lengthy co-creation process may
discourage users (Ozdemir, Cascini, & Verlinden 2020). Therefore, trying to find a
balance between the adequate design freedom of users and the complexity of the
requirement-parameter dependencies is necessary. In addition, In this process, the
user does not have direct control over the parameters but does have control over
the performance of the product. Therefore, the personalisation process is driven by
the requirements, and then parameters fulfil these.
The main advantage or improvement of MP over MC is expanding the
design space, and consequently providing freedom to users for self-expression.
Hence, the application of MP is suitable for products for which personal needs
are present. While these personal needs might be already evident as in the
saxophone mouthpiece example, they can be explored to create added value as in
the knitted footwear example. The proposed methodology does not deal with the
identification of the CNs, and it only decomposes the pre-identified top-level
CNs. Therefore, the assessment of whether there is a customer need or desire for
personalisation, or an opportunity of adding value to the product should be
done beforehand. For the saxophone mouthpiece example, the categories of
needs are rather evident with a more expert user profile. Hence, this is a very
suitable case where users can benefit the design freedom to express their specific
needs. Another limitation on the applicability of MP is that the mass efficiency is
not achievable for all products to align the value creation with customer
willingness-to-pay. In this sense, the design variability that AM enables is very
suitable for saxophone mouthpiece, which has a simple construction, but high
value. In the knitted footwear example, it may be arguable whether there is a
need or desire towards the possible changes provided in the knitted fabric
structure, as this case starts with an assumption of top-level CNs. However,
the eventual aim is to demonstrate is how to exploit the flexibility of such digital
manufacturing technology for design personalisation. The structural changes of
the knitted fabric may allow many design opportunities in different contexts. In
the footwear context, having a more generic user profile may limit the control
given over the design. However, in a context with more experienced users, more

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 design freedom can be provided, and this may yield to designs and uses of the
product which have not even been anticipated.

6. Conclusion
MP may provide unique products and experiences for customers in an affordable
way. Now, it is more real and feasible than ever with advancements in manufac-
turing and industrial production. Further advancements in digital manufacturing
technologies will enable more profound changes in the product architecture, thus
more products will be the subject of MP and personalisation will get more
affordable. MP is compatible with on-demand smart manufacturing envisioned
in Industry 4.0, and expected to play a major role in the future of consumer
products market. The manufacturing automation envisioned via smart factories
must be supported by design automation to truly enable personalisation with mass
efficiency. Designers should get acquainted with the MP process and the necessary
perspectives for successful implementation in product development.
In the aid of designers, this work presented a design methodology for MP that
focusses on digital manufacturing context. It explains specifically the development
and execution of a personal design generation process through defining a seed
design as the overarching architecture that ensures such flexibility and adaptability
to user’s expectations. The proposed methodology guides the designer through the
design specification and solution processes for seed design development. It offers a
tailored approach to the complexity management of solution space for MP. Other
novelties are in how the design and solution spaces are constructed and in
obtaining a final design having a real-time interaction with the user. The design
and solution spaces are interactive and change according to the user input. Instead
of setting a hierarchy of requirements prior to the design process, the choice is
given to the users. The more customer-centric approach to design personalisation
process aims to improve customer co-creation experience and satisfaction with
personalised products. An algorithm is also proposed to manage real-time inter-
action of users and automate personalised design generation. Hence, the algorithm
is aimed to be complementary to the smart manufacturing paradigm.The meth-
odology is applicable to the design of consumer products where personal needs are
present, personalisation would have added value, and application to digital manu-
facturing is feasible.
The proposed methodology provides a foundation for DfMP from a product
development perspective, where the designer is not only the product developer, but
also in a facilitator role for customer design. MP is still an emerging paradigm,
hence both advancements in the enabling technologies and changes in customer
demands and expectations may require the design approach to be adapted accord-
ingly. The use of the methodology will be more significant with the advancements
like varying topologies, voxel-based multiple materials among the same compo-
nent, or with embedded 3D-printed electronics. A limitation of the study is that the
methodology relies on digital manufacturing solely. Whereas in practice, some
products may be partially mass-produced with conventional methods. Another
limitation worth mentioning is in the user’s real-time interaction with the design.
The design space changes with each user decision, and in case these changes are too
radical, the user experience might be affected undesirably. Future work should
focus on designing the co-creation activity and projecting that onto the seed design

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 development. Besides the value offered by the personalisation of the product, the
co-creation experience also presents value for the customer. Customers’ satisfac-
tion with the final product and engagement with the co-creation process is also
related to the experience provided. The different contributors such as co-creation
process, product personalisation interfaces, user experience and customer journey
through personalising a product may be considered together with a product and
service design approach to provide the best processes and results for customers.

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