Customizable Products

When I look back on my skateboarding days, I remember looking forward to getting a new deck, maybe new wheels and trucks. These were the days before helmets, you know, the good ole days. We had one or two local skate shops, but often I would wait until the summer time to buy them while on vacation at the Jersey shore. Imagine that, a young teenager, passionate about skateboarding and having to wait months to go to the shop to get the latest gear?

Obviously, things are changing for todays kids. They simply go online, order what they want and are likely frustrated if its not delivered the next day. How do small startup manufacturers satisfy the wants and desires of this new generation?

CLICK THIS LINK TO CONFIGURE THE ABOVE SKATEBOARD

Things like social media certainly help on brand awareness and viral sharing. But, how do they deal with supply and demand? How do they differentiate themselves? How do they react to change?

One thing we see in manufacturing is a growing desire to create configurable or customizable products. Variations on size, shape, color, material, function. Above is a link to a model we created in Autodesk Inventor and created an online configurable representation. This allows manufacturers to go in and offer "more" to their customers? More options, more flexibility. In the end, more loyalty, more business. Begins to question where the cloud will take products that we develop and connect manufacturers and customers. That will continue to enable companies to adapt to trends and serve their customers quicker, in the end grow market share. Curious what other technologies you are seeing that is changing the landscape of product design.