Chocri is a German startup (founded about a year ago) that customizes chocolate bars.   By combining a base chocolate with your choice from over 90 toppings, there are more than 10 billion possibilities to create the chocolate bar of your dreams.

Chocri was founded by entrepreneurs Michael Bruck and Franz Duge in early 2008.  It was Franz who had the “light bulb” idea to start a custom chocolate bar company when he couldn’t think of a personal gift to give his girlfriend on her birthday.  At the time, Franz and Michael were running a chocolate fountain company, so Franz came up with the idea of using the liquid chocolate from that company, and turning it into a bar, which he topped with his girlfriend’s favorite snacks: gummy bears and trail mix.

When Franz’s friends heard about his creative chocolate concoction, they asked him if he could make some for them too – and that’s how Chocri was born.

Within the first year of launching, chocri sold over 120,000 bars of chocolate in Germany.  Currently, the chocolate can be shipped to Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, Luxembourg.

Having achieved initial success with its German language website, the company is now expanding to the United States, launching on January 11 with a new website for the U.S. market at http://www.createmychocolate.com.

Some of Chocri's chocolate creations

Chocri uses only fair trade and organic chocolate, and donates a percentage of its revenue to an organization that supports kids on the Ivory Coast (where their cocoa beans come from).  Customers are also encouraged to donate at checkout.

Chocri is not aware of any other  food mass customizer that has embarked on an expansion across the Atlantic.  The company is also planning to expand to Ireland and the UK in the first quarter of 2010.

The October 2009 issue of Speciality Fabrics Review contains a detailed article on mass customization

Specialty Fabrics Review is the official publication of the Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI), a not-for-profit trade association with more than 2,000 member companies representing the international specialty fabrics marketplace.

The October issue of the magazine contains a detailed article by Janice Kleinschmidt on the increasing use of mass customization in the fabrics sector. (I was asked to contribute some views for the report.)

I was struck by the variety of fabrics companies that are using mass customization to deliver unique solutions in both consumer-oriented and business-to-business markets.  The article notes the following examples:

GGBailey.com, the direct-to-consumer division of Racemark International, a made-to-order floor mat manufacturer based in Calhoun, Ga.  Consumers enter the year, make, and model of their vehicles and then view the appropriate shape of mat as they select a mat color, trim, heel-pad shape and color, and personalization or logo.

Globe Manufacturing Co. of Pittsfield, N.H., uses a Gerber low-ply cutter to produce customized firefighter suits. The GearBuilder configurator on its website allows customers to select features ranging from the type of moisture barrier to pockets.

SIF Technology Co. of Sarasota, Fla., which digitally prints custom images on leather, is fine-tuning its process and production line to the furniture market, reports Chris Cudzilo, vice president of sales. “We give [customers] the ability to take the design element of the overall project a step further than they have been able to do,” he says. “We can image and color leather within a 24-hour turnaround.”

Joe Pine, co-founder of Strategic Horizons LLP and author of the landmark book ‘Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition’ advises enterprises of the gains that can be made by adopting a mass customization model:

“If you break apart your processes into modules that allow you to do different things for different people by picking modules out of a bin, then you can efficiently give customers everything they want…I do strongly recommend companies look at flipping the switch.  Get rid of finished goods inventory and do a full mass-customization model.  Because, done well, it actually can lower costs.”

My own contribution focuses mostly on highlighting the findings of research in the area in a way that hopefully makes it accessible to readers.  I referred to the importance of maintaining learning relationships with customers, and the need to provide an effective system to allow customers to specify their exact needs.

My thanks to Janice Kleinschmidt for asking me to contribute views for her  very interesting article.

David ten Have, Ponoko’s CEO, is quoted as saying: “By partnering with ShopBot we bring together more than 20,000 creators and over 6,000 fabricators to use a powerful online service to design, make and deliver goods locally”.  (These figures appear to relate to the overall number of users of Ponoko, and fabricators who are users of Shop Bot equipment.)

Users of the 100kGarages website can get their ideas made locally by owners of ShopBot equipment, and delivered within a few days.  It is powered by Ponoko’s online ‘click to make’ system and users of ShopBot digital fabricators.  While there are users of ShopBot equipment in 54 countries around the world, the 100kGarages website currently shows a list of registered fabricators that have signed up to participate.  These are located mostly in the U.S., but also include fabricators in Canada, Mexico, Australia, United Kingdom and Sweden.

To use the 100kGarages service, users can search a map for a local garage workshop, or alternatively submit a request and then choose from bids placed by a range of ShopBot owners to make almost anything.  The service is free for everyone to search and submit requests, and for fabricators to post profiles and bids.  Interestingly, the user (or ‘maker’ in the terminology of the venture) does not have to upload an actual design file;  they can enter a description of the job, including their ideal purchase price and the delivery deadline.   The maker is advised to describe the project in detail so that fabbers can make an informed bid.  The request can also include links to relevant images, for example a sketches of your idea.

Examples of the wide range of products being created includes things such as tables, chairs, cabinets, car parts, signage, boats, musical instruments, gaskets, sheds, housing.  Materials include wood, plastic, metal and composite materials.

The press release announcing the new service quotes ShopBot President Ted Hall as saying:  “Ponoko’s making system gives our ShopBot owners the ability to receive a new stream of work from a wide range of customers.  Our partnership also means everyone now has easy access to their own local 3D fabricator.”

At the moment, the 100kGarages  system is confined to work involving CNC routers (tools that create by cutting away or subtracting material).  Over time, the partners hope to incorporate more types of tools into the 100Kgarage network.  (Ponoko itself already provides laser-cutting services).

The new service is a significant step for Ponoko, which has produced over 30,000 DIY, hard to find and consumer goods.  Until now, Ponoko’s existing manufacturing resources have been centralised in New Zealand and San Francisco, which can mean expensive shipping charges for buyers not located close to either of the manufacturing locations.  The 100kGarages project will add the ability to transfer the manufacturing of custom-made products far closer to the end customer, reducing transport costs, delivery times, and the carbon costs associated with delivery of the finished product.

The phrase ‘democratisation of manufacturing’ generally refers in various ways to the transfer of manufacturing away from centralised industry to a more distributed model where design data can be easily transferred between the customer and a local supplier who will turn the design into a finished product.  The spread of democratised manufacturing reflects the fact that, for some products, advances in affordable manufacturing technology have cancelled out the financial advantage which had been associated with centralised manufacturing for the last 100 years or more.

Democratised manufacturing capacity is measured not in terms of the size of one factory, but the number of local producers who are networked together and the extent of geographic territory covered by this network.

With 1ookGarages.com, Ponoko and ShopBot are taking a step towards the realisation of democratised manufacturing on a very large scale.

Of course, the flexible systems that enable democratised manufacturing are also associated with another concept that is an closely linked to mass customization – it’s called ‘Economies of Scope’ – where manufacturing systems are flexible enough that it is financially viable for the manufacturer to make every item to the customer’s requirements, with no two alike.

It (the degree of customization available) is a balance between providing the flexibility and the choice, but also making sure customers are going to be delighted with the end product. So, in our photo books, we offer a custom path [that lets] you change every background, template, layout, font. But then we also offer express books, or locked books, where we’ve actually chosen all that, and all you have to do is put a picture in.

It depends on the use occasion, the sophistication of the customer. In stationery, we want to make sure they’re following the appropriate etiquette. That the font is going to apply to the background. That the end product is going to be beautiful and delightful. And so, in that case we’re limiting the choice, so that we increase the overall satisfaction.

He goes on to describe how the company engages with its customers to research the questions described above:

Q. What kind of testing do you do? Do you get 20 people in a room together and have them fiddle with this stuff for an afternoon and figure out if they like the end product? How do you find that perfection?

A. It starts with involving the customer throughout the whole process. We do a lot of upfront prototyping and testing with customers. Then we actually create the creation paths, and we do usability studies. We’ll do in-home ethnographic studies. How people are using stationery in their lives? Where do they have trepidation or anxiety? Where [do] they want to be creative?

Then we put it out there, and we see how it works. Right, we’re a Web company, so our ability to change on the fly and move more quickly than the established commercial printing industry is much greater. And so we can be more responsive. But involving the consumer in the whole process is key to success.

This description reflects very closely the idea of ‘building a learning relationship with the customer’, which is seen in academic literature as an important component in the information cycle between the customer and the enterprise that uses mass customization.

2. The WATBlog, which provides news and information to connect the web, advertising and technology sectors in India, recently ran a ‘Saturday Startup‘ article which examined an Indian t-shirt company called Scopial that uses the crowdsourcing business model. In Scopial’s crowdsourcing system, submitted designs are voted by the community members on a scale of 1 to 5. Every fortnight, a design is declared winner and the respective designers get a reward of Rs. 20,000 cash. The designs are printed on T-shirts and made available on the website for sale.

This article is a little eye-opener to those of us in North America and Europe who perhaps limit our horizons sometimes when looking for examples of enterprises that use interesting business models.

It appears that the region is something of a hotbed for enterprises using the mass customization model, perhaps aided by the presence in the region of Babson College (a business college which focuses heavily on enterpreneurship) and of course MIT.

The MilkOrSugar website

At MilkOrSugar, visitors can check pricing, shipping destinations, payment options and the number of basic models for each vendor. The site only publishes products that can actually be completely ordered, paid and shipped online. So car or kitchen configurators are, for now, excluded. Anyone can suggest a site for inclusion in MilkOrSugar.

Via the links on the MilkOrSugar website, visitors can create customized version of a huge variety of products, including a sleeping bag, Samurai sword, bicycle, dress, drums, shoes, skate board, Scrabble board, watch, machine parts, perfume, lingerie, wallpaper or Lego model.

The site also contains reviews of a build to order products, some of which you might not expect: fire extinguisher, guitar, radio controlled car, protein shakes, robot, canoe, with many more products in progress. The site will publish new vendor reviews daily.

In a press release, Stefan Hoevenaar of MilkOrSugar said: “We researched perhaps all websites that offer customized physical products. In many categories, affordable quality products can now be customized, ordered and shipped to your home. The range of things that can be customized is widening rapidly. New manufacturers appear almost every day.”

In some categories, multiple vendors are competing, with most vendors offering customized bags, shoes, computers, candy, dresses and books. Most vendors ship worldwide.

Often, customization is going beyond a print on the outside or choosing a color. Hoevenaar continued: “This is not just some paint on the outside. It’s about assembling or creating your own shapes, about choosing sizes and materials, creating textures and blends. The artisanship of some manufacturers enables their buyer to really become a designer. The concept of Mass Customization, coined in 1987 and promoted by Joseph Pine in 1992, is now becoming reality.”

I discussed MilkOrSugar further with Stefan Hoevenaar, noting that it appears to be more consumer-focused than the other online database of product customization, the Configurator Database. Stefan noted: “We also had a look at the Configurator Database and it seems mostly aimed at researchers. We decided to only include sites that offer customization with direct ordering, incl. payment – as a kind of proof of the pudding.”

“We’re about to include some non-direct-order products like cars, at least for their often exciting customization experience. However, we’ll clearly indicate if payment and home delivery is possible.”

All the links on MilkOrSugar go directly to the websites of the companies concerned – they are not affiliate links. (Affiliate links are advertisements that provides a commission to the website owner whenever a user clicks on a link and subsequently makes a purchase.)

MilkOrSugar is currently maintained by Stefan and his colleagues Tako, Sybren, David, Ritchard, Myrte, Bramantya, Alexander and Melissa, who are a blend of ILUMY and MilkOrSugar staff. It is hoped that it will soon be 100% maintained by MilkOrSugar personnel.

It takes more time and effort than you might think to find and evaluate websites offering product customization, to determine if they are suitable for inclusion in a customization portal. I know this from personal experience, as I made an effort to set up such a portal a few years ago as part of this site, but had to discontinue the project as I could not give it the time that was required.

Stefan and his colleagues deserve praise for developing a very comprehensive and well-presented site that will help to spread the idea of customized products to a wider audience.

A Nintendo DSi with a MyTego.com skin

The company provides custom-made vinyl ‘skins’ (self-adhesive covers) for personal electronic devices.  Customers can create a Tego skin using images from the extensive online MyTEGO catalog, or they can upload pictures from their computer or digital camera. Each one is then manufactured individually to the specifications of the customer.

The MyTego skins are precision cut and cover the majority of the device. The device remains fully functional with specific cut-outs for screens, buttons, keys, as well as cutouts allowing access to the device’s battery. Tego skins can be easily and frequently replaced to remain up to date with fast changing trends.

MyTego.com says it has developed a complete patented production system that allows for individual manufacturing with infinite customer choices, with similar economies of traditional mass-production manufacturing where the customer receives very limited or no choices for personalization.

Among the devices for which MyTego skins are available is the Nintendo DSi, which went on sale in early April in United States as well as the United Kingdom.  MyTEGO.com picked up an example of the white version of the Nintendo DSi when it was first released in Japan a couple months ago. They released the online template for the DSi two months ago so customers could start designing the skin for the much talked about Nintendo DSi and order their custom skins in advance.

The MyTego.com website (in seven languages) provides skins for a large variety of cell phones, game systems, MP3 players, game consoles, laptops, PDAs and electronic organizers.

The guitar which had a once-off MyTego skin applied (Picture via Trans World News)

Recently, MyTEGO.ventured beyond its usual area of activity, when it designed and produced a once-off vinyl Tego skin with pictures for an acoustic guitar, to mark the release of a new CD by country music singer Johnny Reid.  However, it remains to be seen if the company will extend into this area of business.  Producing skins for guitars in particular may be difficult.  While major musical instrument brands such as Yamaha or Fender may produce guitars to an exact replicable template, many acoustic guitars in particular are generic, with no specific branding that can be used as a reference to identify their exact shape and thus produce a skin which will fit accurately.

Spreadshirt allows customers to personalized goods to purchase for themselves, with a minimum order of one.   In addition, Spreadshirt extends this capability to partners, large and small, who want to offer personalized shirts and other apparel to their communities and customers.  Partners range from individuals with a blog, to the world’s largest brands.

Spreadshirt says that it will use the funding “to add new products and capabilities to its online platform, to strengthen its international footprint, and for innovative messaging to the massive market of people who wear clothes” – looks like they’ve given up on conquering the nudist market then…

Jana Eggers, CEO of Spreadshirt, is quoted as saying: “Spreadshirt mixes an online ‘Web 2.0’ platform with the offline worlds of fashion, mass customization, and real-time manufacturing.   Combining this with our global coverage means we require a financing partner with a range of experience to contribute more than simply cash.  Kennet, and specifically Managing Director Max Bleyleben, demonstrated their partnership mindset, and past results.  We were sold.”

In turn, the press release quotes Max Bleyleben as saying:  “Spreadshirt is an example of a capital-efficient business that has built not only a strong leadership position in Europe, but also quality leadership in North America.  The entrepreneurial team behind Spreadshirt — founder and Chairman Lukasz Gadowski, founder and CTO Matthias Spiess, and CEO Jana Eggers — have built a dynamic, innovative business for mass-customized eCommerce.”  Mr. Bleyleben was elected to join Spreadshirt’s board.

“As a post-bubble entrepreneur, it is great to see our idea come to this stage of growth financing,” said Lukasz Gadowski, Chairman of Spreadshirt.  “I am looking forward to working with the Spreadshirt team, Accel and Kennet to take personalization and self expression to new heights.”

Accel Partner Harry Nelis underlines the fit with Kennet, pointing out its experience with businesses that want to accelerate growth: “Since 2006, Accel has supported Spreadshirt’s development as it has become the market leader for creative apparel in Europe, and established itself in North America.  With Kennet joining the shareholder group, we have additional expertise to take Spreadshirt across the chasm into the mainstream on both sides of the Atlantic.”

It is something of an achievement in itself for Spreadshirt to successfully conclude a funding of this size in the current economic climate.  Spreadshirt’s main rivals, Cafepress and Zazzle (Both U.S.-based enterprises) have dominated this sector between them in the United States.  This new investment may assist Spreadshirt in making more significant inroads into the American market.

The MyPacifier Personalized Pacifier story started when a young mother in Denmark experienced the pacifier swap problem.  Pia Callesen, the creator of MyPacifier Personalized Pacifiers, says, “When I went to day care to pick up my son Frederik, more often than not I found that his pacifier had disappeared and Frederik had another child’s pacifier in his mouth.  I began searching for a pacifier product with a name on it, but I got the same answer in all the shops, ‘buy a permanent marker pen and write his name on the pacifier.’  I thought it should be possible for all parents to buy a quality pacifier with their child’s name engraved on it.  Apart from looking good, it could then also survive repeated sterilization.”

Pia Callesen went on to invent the world’s first personalized pacifier, something she thought was sorely needed for mothers everywhere.  Callesen spent months researching to find the right mix of a quality pacifier and the best-possible engraving equipment.”

The company trades in Denmark and Sweden under the name Navnesutten.dk, and in co-operation with Kim and Carol Pedersen of Fremont, California, the product is available to American parents at MyPacifier.com.

2.  Deborah Gage, writing in SFGate (the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle), describes how the paper invited readers to submit business ideas for assessment by venture capitalists.  One of the companies that made it through initial screening, to reach the venture capitalists’ evaluation, was Mojamix, a service that allows customers to mass customize breakfast cereals.  The service is somewhat similar to that of My Way Cereal, previously covered on this site.

A venture capitalist, David Pakman notes:

I’m skeptical that consumers at scale actually know enough about what ingredients go together to make a breakfast cereal or granola they will like and will taste good.  If I pick dried cranberries over raisins, will I like it less or more? Kinda have to taste it to know.

Mass customization of food products is indeed an interesting trend, but I wonder if it is better to focus on areas where the customer does not have to taste it to know if they will like it.

Margins in food products are low and are thus only interesting at scale, so Mojamix would need to demonstrate that the lifetime value of a customer is large enough to afford the customer acquisition costs that would be required to attract lots of customers.

The alternative is to make it a niche business with high margins and high prices, which are generally not interesting businesses for venture investors.

It is difficult to argue with this analysis:  there is a question mark over whether companies offering customised food products for delivery can achieve the scale required to move from being an artisan product to a mass customized one.  I do not know of any company relying on this business model that has achieved significant scale in terms of sales.  I’m open to correction on this.

2.  RPI, a provider of automated, mass-customized manufacturing and fulfillment for the consumer print-on-demand market, recently announced that it has set an industry record through the production of more than 1.3 million photo books in 2008.  This brings its overall production tally to three million photo books since the product’s launch, representing a 60 percent year-over-year growth.

3.  Tim O’Reilly, founder of the O’Reilly Publishing company that specialises in programming and other IT topics, gives an interview to The Inquirer, in which he notes:

“The deeper idea we’ve been exploring throughout all aspects of the company is the idea that a lot of times the most interesting technology can be discovered by what people do with it for fun.”

He gives a number of examples to support this idea, including the following:

“Open-source hardware is telling us something about the future of manufacturing – playing with mass customisation in various ways.”  This trend began with sites like Threadless, in which communities collaborate and vote on T-shirt designs; now there are all sorts of start-ups enabling people to design items for manufacturing.  “That’s open-source hardware.  People are realising there’s no real advantage in owning the design.  The cost may come down if more people use and manufacture the parts.”

4.  The AsiaOne website contains a reproduction of an article from Singapore newspaper The Business Times, in which Sivam Krish, CEO and founder of Genometri, describes the possibilities for user-generated content, and user-generated products.  He tells how:

“I was a former assistant professor in industrial design lecturer in the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore (NUS) for about three years.  During my classes, I found that the younger generation was able to create designs using a fundamentally different approach.I found them spending a lot of time in front of computers modifying computer-aided design models, and I felt that this could be automated.

……..

With the support of the university’s Industry Liaisons Office, I patented this technology that I felt could completely change the way products are designed.

Together with four friends, I set up a company called Genometri, to develop this core design technology and with a deep breath I took the leap from being an academic to an entrepreneur. NUS has a good support structure for funding. But as with all start-ups, there were its difficulties too.  Mine was in convincing designers to use the software I created.

After attending a conference in the US on mass customisation, I realised that the greater opportunity is in letting customers design and that most companies were trying to let their customers do this.

So we swung our B2B model to a B2C model, focusing on the consumer.  We launched a portal (www.jujups.com) as a design platform that would allow consumers to create personalised keepsakes, including mugs, t-shirts and 3D-printed photo frames, by using drag-and-drop functions.”

I hope to write a longer post on the current state of the 3D printing sector soon.

More links later!

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In FXStreet.com, John Mauldin wrote a column last November titled ‘The Financial Fire Trucks are Gathering‘. While the first two sections of the column refer to other topics, the third, titled ‘The Millennium Wave’ is an insightful analysis of ‘The Third Wave’ Alvin Toffler‘s book from the 1970′s, which predicted a world wide computer network (which came to reality as the internet) and mass customization. Toffler depicted the First Wave as the agricultural revolution, the Second Wave as the industrial revolution, and the Third Wave as the electronic data and communication revolution. ‘The Millennium Wave’ also looks at the nature of change. John Mauldin writes:

“Although some suggest that we’re still in the middle of Toffler’s Third Wave, I would suggest that what we are facing is different in both substance and character.

The Third Wave was actually the result of an innovation cycle that we can call the Information Age. I believe we are only halfway through the Information Age, with more profound changes as to how we work and play just around the corner.

But this time something is different. Instead of one wave of innovation following another, I believe that we are going to see multiple waves of significant change and innovation surge all over the world at roughly the same time. The combined effects are going to produce a period of change unlike anything seen in the history of man.

It will change things in ways that almost defy the imagination and at a pace that will leave one breathless. On the one hand, the Millennium Wave will be seen as a source of good, as we will live healthier and longer and there will be more of the basic necessities of life and more life options. On the other hand, the very ground we walk on will seem like it is shifting. The roadmap we have in our minds for our future will require a constant fine tuning (if not major reprogramming) in order to determine our position.

The more precisely you plan your future, the harder that change will hit you.”

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Austin Weber, writing in Assemblyblog.com, (part of the online version of Assembly Magazine) describes the need for the U.S. auto industry to switch to a build-to-order strategy. He notes that Matthias Holweg and Frits Pil, professors affiliated with the International Motor Vehicle Program, a research consortium based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Cambridge, MA), believe the auto industry desperately needs a flexible production system that addresses complexity issues by focusing on strategies such as “decoupled assembly” and body shop modularity.

The article also describes:

…another interesting concept that could revolutionize the age-old way in which cars are manufactured and distributed…a system in which local car dealers would engage in final assembly.

Here’s how it would work: A basic car, consisting of an engine, chassis and body, would be delivered to a dealer. Then, a team of individuals would set about customizing the vehicle for each buyer’s individual tastes. In other words, final assembly would be done at the point of sale. It would be interesting to see an automaker that’s bold enough to try that kind of innovative strategy.”

The proposal described in the Assemblyblog article sounds a lot like that proposed by Local Motors, featured in a recent post on this website.

An article in the Vancouver Sun, ‘One-size-fits-all no more‘ provides an interesting overview on the topic of personalized medicine, explaining the topic everyday language, and decoding some of the terminology used in this area.

Scott Duke Harris, writing in the Mercury News, includes personalized medicine as a ‘Tech trend to watch in 2009‘ and summarises some of the examples that have made the most progress towards widespread usage.

In addition to technological developments, the increasing affordability of current personalized medicine technologies such as genomic sequencing will advance their use in the healthcare market, which John Carroll describes in the Fierce Biotech blog.

Personalized medicine is frequently concerned with diagnosis – analyzing whether a particular existing treatment is compatible with an individual patient’s genetic makeup. The New York Times looked in detail at this area in a recent article titled ‘Patient’s DNA may be a Signal to Tailor Medication‘, focusing in particular on changes to the U.S. legislative environment to reflect advances in science. It also raises the question as to whether major drug companies will be enthusiastic about personalized medicine technologies that may reduce the sales of existing drugs, by identifying patients for whom they are likely to be ineffective.

It should be borne in mind that the current trends in personalized medicine are mostly concerned with the development of more effective diagnostic techniques, something which is evidenced by all the articles referenced here. It is likely to be many more years before personalized treatments, that combat diseases with unique solutions based on individual patient genetics, become a reality.

The DK travel customized travel guide website

They are similar in concept to Offbeat Guides, which were covered on this site recently.

The Inventorspot article considers the DK Travel customized travel guide to be a superior offering to the Offbeat Guide, although it should be pointed out that the Offbeat Guide is still in a ‘beta’ stage, to allow it to be evaluated by customers before launch, a method more commonly used with computer software.

Offbeat Guides create personalized, up-to-date travel guides that cover over 30,000 travel destinations, using a combination of search technology and curation by both amateur and professional travel experts.  The Offbeat Guides website states that their guides scour the web to find the best, most up-to-date information about each destination.  Customers can personalize the information they want, based on their travel dates, preferences, and destination.  The guides come with local maps, festivals and events going on during the customer’s period of visiting, exchange rates, key phrases in the city’s language, weather forecasts and other relevant information.

The key selling point of Offbeat Guides is that standard guidebooks are often 12 to 18 months out of date as soon as they are available on bookshelves.  Offbeat Guides claims that its content is the most up-to-date because they have an enormous technology base of spiders and crawlers that find the best information out on the internet, and combine it with information from established authors and thousands of locals who are always updating the information about where they live.

Offbeat Guides is also a strong believer in Creative Commons, in which users can share, create and build information that is available for mixing and remixing into unique new applications. As well as Creative Commons licensed information, it also use proprietary content and professional authors, which it says makes for accurate and authoritative information in our guides. The customer can get their guide in electronic format for printing at home, or Offbeat Guides can create and ship a printed guide before the time of the customer’s trip, with all the latest information packed inside.

According to David Sifry, the company is run by obsessive technologists who happen to travel a lot, rather than being drawn from the travel industry. In order to create a personalized travel guide, they ask the customer just five questions:

• Where are you going?
  When will you be there? – So that they can include information about local festivals, events, club meetings, sports teams, concerts, and other timely information
  Where are you coming from? – With this information, Offbeat Guides will give the customer contextual information, like timezone differences, embassies and consulates for their home country, language guides, exchange rates, electrical adapters needed, and so on.
  Where are you staying? – Offbeat Guides uses this to localize the maps that go into the personalized guide, and put the customer’s hotel right at the centre of things.
  The Traveler’s Name: – They can put the customer’s name ron the book cover, and this can be used for gift purposes.

The website indicates that the pdf version (for downloading and printing at home) of an Offbeat Guide costs US$9.95, and the print edition costs US$24.95 plus packaging and delivery.

In his blog post, David Sifry notes:

You get full control over your guide – so if you already know where you’re staying, you can click to deselect all of the information about hotels, for example. You can add customized chapters and fill them with information that you gather from your friends, or from around the internet.

This reflects an interesting point – that mass customization of products can also refer to the omission of elements that are not needed by the customer.  Mass customization is often described only in the context of a customer adding features or elements to a basic product.  However, there may also be the potential to develop opportunities in the area of allowing customers to omit elements or features from even the basic specification of a product, if these are not needed by the customer.  However, in the case of Offbeat Guides, it does not appear that omitting a chapter results in a lower price.

The personalization of information, whether on travel or any other topic, is normally viewed only in the context of delivery over the web.  If the Offbeat Guides proposal is successful, it will possibly generate a new level of interest in personalized book publishing.  Personalization in this context refers to the content of the book, rather than the more cosmetic types of personalization (such as putting someone’s name on the cover or at various places in the content).

I think that the Offbeat Guides idea could become a success, as there is still a lot to be said for a printed travel guide that is not dependent on an internet connection, or a suitable power supply to recharge a PDA.  Printed documents can be carried around a city stuffed in a jacket or backpack, do not need batteries, can be generally thrown about, and will still work afterwards.

One critical issue for Offbeat Guides is delivery times for printed versions – the company will need to carefully analyse actual delivery times, rather than the claimed delivery times of the various providers.  This will ensure that customers are correctly informed as to whether there is sufficient time to deliver a printed version of their Offbeat Guide before their planned departure date.  Getting this right could prevent a great deal of hassle for the company from disgruntled future customers.  The worst thing for the company would be having to deal with irate customers who do not receive their personalized printed travel guide on time.  Perhaps delivery times, though outside the direct control of Offbeat Guides, could form a useful part of the beta testing.

According to Delcam’s CAD Product Marketing Manager, Chris Lawrie, “Tribrid Modelling offers a better way of working for all companies developing new variants from existing designs, especially those making products that need to be personalised for a particular customer. The combination of solid modelling, surface modelling and triangle modelling provides a unique design system for these companies. Having all the different modelling techniques in a single package reduces the need to transfer data between multiple programs and so streamlines the whole product development process.”

Delcam has developed this approach through the integration of its PowerSHAPE surface and solid modelling functionality with the reverse engineering and triangle modelling options that were in earlier versions of CopyCAD. This means that designers can move data captured with reverse engineering into the design environment more easily and so incorporate additional features into any reverse-engineered design more quickly. The new combination software also incorporates a wide range of enhancements to many of the key operations.

Delcam has developed this unique design approach through the integration of its PowerSHAPE surface and solid modelling functionality with the reverse engineering and triangle modelling options that were in earlier versions of CopyCAD. This means that designers can move data captured with reverse engineering into the design environment more easily and so incorporate additional features into any reverse-engineered design more quickly. However, the new combination is not just a simple bolting together of existing functionality. It incorporates a wide range of enhancements to many of the key operations.

For example, major improvements have been made to the sculpting and model repair tools previously available in CopyCAD to edit triangle files. These tools allow high-quality models to be produced from poor quality reverse engineering data, or from damaged or defective physical components. For example, uneven surfaces can be smoothed out, gaps in the data can be filled and extra points can be added in areas where only sparse data has been collected.

Also, the availability of functionality from PowerSHAPE in CopyCAD Pro has enabled easier, faster and more accurate creation of CAD surfaces from triangle data. The user still retains total control over the way the complete data set is divided into the component features and surfaces. However, each area can now be converted into CAD data by generating a network of curves and then projecting it onto the mesh of triangles. A single surface is generated within the complete set of curves using the Smart Surfacing functionality from PowerSHAPE. This automatically analyses the curves and determines to most appropriate way to create the surface.

Analysis tools are available in Copy CAD Pro to display the differences between the triangle mesh and the resulting surface. This might show, for example, that a closer spacing between the curves would be needed in some areas of the model to keep the surfaces within the required tolerance.

Delcam says that the other key benefit of the integration into CopyCAD Pro of modelling options from PowerSHAPE is the ability to create “perfect” geometry, in areas where any reverse engineering system would give only approximate results. For example, the design might include one extruded surface, which could only be described by a series of individual surfaces in traditional reverse-engineering software. With the added modelling tools, it is easy in CopyCAD Pro to reproduce the original design intent, by replacing the required area with a single surface. Similarly, a reverse-engineered fillet area can be replaced with a consistent, smooth fillet, rather than existing as a set of complex, free-form patches that may have varying radii.

Tribrid Modelling also allows Boolean operations to be carried out between triangle models and either surfaces or solids. For many years, PowerSHAPE has been one of very few CAD systems able to perform Boolean operations between solids and surfaces. The ability to perform similar addition, subtraction and merge operations with triangles as well will make CopyCAD Pro even more flexible.

There are many examples where a combination of different techniques is needed to create a complete design. A typical example would be in the plastics industry, where initial hand-modelled prototypes are often produced in solid material. Reverse engineering from such models will only produce the external surfaces of the component. However, by using CopyCAD Pro, these surfaces can be offset by the material thickness to generate the internal surfaces. Extra geometric features, such as reinforcing ribs and bosses for fixing, can then be added with the extra solid modelling tools from PowerSHAPE to complete the design. The finished model can then be subtracted from a solid block to give the core and cavity shapes needed to mould the product.

Delcam claims that its introduction of Tribrid Modelling provides the optimum software solution for the mass customisation of designs. It notes that consumers are increasingly moving away from mass-produced products. This can be either because they want designs that are more individual or because they want an element of bespoke design, for example, for medical reasons or for increased comfort. This can only be achieved by incorporating reverse engineering alongside computer-based design methods.

Tribrid Modelling in CopyCAD Pro allows users to build up CAD models quickly and easily with data from different sources. It makes it easy to design the main outline of a product with CAD but to use hand models for complex details or decoration, or to capture specific data from a customer or patient. The extra data required can then be collected with a scanning device and combined with the main CAD model in the computer.

A similar approach can be taken when developing “new” parts that are, in fact, variations on existing components that were developed without CAD data. It is often quicker to digitise the existing part and limit the CAD work to the desired modifications, instead of completely recreating the whole part with CAD. This approach is particularly useful for companies, for example those in the ceramics industry, which update historic designs into modern reproductions.

Meanwhile, Geomagic, which provides software for digital shape sampling and processing (DSSP), has received an $8 million investment from Valhalla Partners. The funds will be used to develop innovative products and software platforms in engineering and medical markets, accelerate growth rates, and build a scalable business infrastructure.

Since its inception in 1996, Geomagic, based in North Carolina, has developed a range of award-winning products for DSSP, which describes the process of digitally capturing physical objects and automatically creating accurate 3D models for downstream design, analysis and inspection. Current Geomagic products include:

Version 10 of Geomagic Studio (for digital reconstruction of complex physical objects) and Geomagic Qualify (which enables fast, 3D graphical comparisons between CAD models and as-built parts for first-article inspection, inline or shop-floor inspection, trend analysis, and in-depth assessment), released earlier this year, were the most successful new product launches in the company’s history, coming at a time when DSSP is being acknowledged as a key to greater productivity and cost savings. Geomagic quotes a recent study by the Aberdeen Group stated that best-in-class companies are 2.7 times more likely to use DSSP in design and inspection than are less-successful companies.

Other software products in the Geomagic range include Geomagic Fashion for quickly extracting design intent of physical objects and creating CAD-ready surfaces for mechanical design; Geomagic Blade, the first inspection tool based on unique requirements from leading turbine-machinery companies for automatic dimensioning of turbine blades; Geomagic Review, free software for inspection analysis and collaboration; and Geomagic Piano, a dental CAD/CAM software platform that can be customized for dental equipment manufacturers.

“The support of Valhalla Partners is another validation of our technology and the growing acceptance of the DSSP market category,” said Ping Fu, Geomagic president and CEO. “We think the time is right to use our dominance in the early adopter market as a springboard into broader professional markets.”