Establishing customer order screening mechanisms under customization environment

Under the customization production environment, it is necessary for enterprises to offer more varieties of products to cope with the demands of different customers. However, the variation in the customized product specification often leads to problems in the enterprise such as an improper design or an uncoordinated manufacturing procedure that causes a much higher or loss. Therefore, enterprises will be able to take profits under control more precisely if they can tell whether the customer’s order is acceptable and estimate the new product cost. To deal with this issue, the authors attempt to develop an evaluation and decision-making system for the customized orders. In this study, customer’s orders are evaluated by a two-stage model. First, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used for the initial screening of orders. While some orders can be directly accepted or rejected, others may need a double check by the business sectors and customers. In the acceptable orders, the Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is used to pick up the case most similar to the new product case for the evaluation of product cost and price setting. At last, the PC product is used as an example to illustrate the proposed methodology. The building of an objective order screening system will help enterprises to make up proper strategies regarding the order