A proposed choice model for the delivery of mass custom homes

INTRODUCTION The use of industrialized building systems, which allow a higher in-factory completion of housing components, has the potential to eliminate building site inconveniences such as bad weather, vandalism and theft that affect construction time, quality and cost, and also helps produce homes more efficiently, when compared to site-built counterparts (Hullibarger 2001). In addition, a mass custom design 1 approach to the delivery of quality affordable homes relates closely to today’s market demands for housing (Noguchi 2003). However, in reality, homebuilders tend to follow routines in their way of doing business and to be reluctant to apply (or buy) innovative design and construction systems to their housing developments. Their buying behaviour towards the adoption of a new product or service was surveyed by reviewing organizational (or industrial) buying behaviour. The task-related variables reflect both initial and operating costs, while the non task-related variables are those that have no direct bearing on the specific problem to be solved by the buying task—such as buyers’ emotional concerns. Furthermore, organizational buyers tend to cut down the information search for non-programmed decisions to determine whether or not to buy an unfamiliar product or service. In the light of a review of organizational buying behaviour models, the author developed a “choice” model that aims to help homebuilders understand the true value of innovative design and construction systems applicable to their housing development in conjunction with the concept of mass customization. The model was thus termed the “choice model for mass customization” and an outline of it is described in this paper.