Impacts of Industry 4.0 concept on the specific case of mass customization through modeling and simulation approach

Implementation of industry 4.0 solution requires high level of investments and there is a great need of research that outlines its quantifiable benefits. This study investigates the implementation of industry 4.0 concept for the specific case of mass customization industry by modeling and simulations. We defined three research question in order to deeply investigate this topic. The answer of first research question requires deep understanding of literature review of mass customization industry and industry 4.0 to obtain the main characteristics of both disciplines. While second research question requires development of two different conceptual models, one with the characteristics of industry 4.0 on mass customization environment and other just featuring mass customization environment. Afterward, these two models are simulated in FLEXSIM software in order to measure the performance. Lastly, third research question requires defining key performance indicators (KPI’s) and measure their performance.