Rapid one-of-a-kind product development

In today's global market, more and more manufacturing companies have realised that the ability to quickly develop a customised product in an economic and efficient way is critical for them to survive in the keen competitive international market, particularly for one-of-a-kind production (OKP) companies. A new generation of OKP systems needs to be developed to maintain competitiveness in the global marketplace and to improve the ability to rapidly combine the strengths of manufacturing partners to meet market needs. In this paper, the main objectives of rapid OKP development in the global manufacturing environment are discussed. The background of recent approaches for rapid development of OKP products is reviewed. After systematically reviewing the existing OKP systems and recent developments of new technology and systems, the authors discuss current issues and requirements for developing a new generation of OKP systems for rapidly producing OKP products. At the end of this paper, a reference system structure is proposed for rapid development of OKP products in the global manufacturing environment.