Springer Build To Order: The Road to the 5-Day Car

Build To Order: The Road to the 5-Day Car addresses the conceptual and practical aspects for achieving the automotive industry’s next goal: the rapid delivery to the customer of a bespoke vehicle only days after placing an order. Review From the review: This book is interesting and well organised... [T]he editors have been able to well integrate the different contributions proposing a book which appears homogeneous... and well written. Production Planning & Control Vol. 20, No. 8 (December 2009) (Reviewer: Paulo Gaiardelli) From the Back Cover Visit any modern car production line and you will be faced by a showcase of modern technology and advanced logistics combining in a clinical environment to produce rows of automobiles, each significantly different from the one before and after it. From stamping out the sheet steel body to driving a finished car off the line typically takes under 30 hours. However, if you try and buy a car to your specification you can expect to wait around 55 days, despite production lines frequently running below capacity. Why can’t you have your car in 30 hours plus delivery time? The challenge of mass customisation, building cars to customer order, brings great value to both the customer and the automotive industry. Building cars to customer order eliminates the need for companies to hold billions of dollars worth of finished stock. Any company able to free this capital would improve their competitive position and be able to reinvest in future product development. The benefits to all are clear and the first to market an operational build-to-order system will generate a significant cost advantage that may be difficult to emulate. The question for many automotive executives is not when but how exactly will such a radically ‘different’ business model operate. Build To Order: The Road to the 5-Day Car addresses the conceptual and practical aspects for achieving the automotive industry’s next goal: the rapid delivery to the customer of a bespoke vehicle only days after placing an order. About the Author Glenn Parry is a senior research fellow in the University of Bath's School of Management (UK), having joined the university after working for the UK Lean Aerospace Initiative, WMG and the University of Warwick (UK). He is participating in the EU Intelligent Logistics for Innovative Product Technologies (ILIPT) project, which explores the feasibility of producing and delivering a bespoke car within only 5 days. His research interests include enterprise transformation and the move to service; application of lean and agile thinking, and development of practice, within automotive, aerospace and construction contexts; and enterprise resource planning systems. Andrew Graves is Professorial Fellow, Management of Technology, also at the University of Bath (UK). He has worked as development engineer and team manager in the world of Formula 1 and 2 racing, and from 1985 he was part of the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex (UK). He is a member of several professional bodies, including the Aerospace, Innovation & Growth Team, DTI; the Automotive Innovation & Growth Team, DTI; and the SMMT Motorists Working Group.