Less diversity but higher satisfaction: An intelligent product configuration method for type-decreased mass customization

•A type-decreased mass customized product configuration method is proposed.•Fuzzy clustering is improved combining the Kano’s model and social inertia.•Social inertia is introduced to satisfy customers and to gain better configuration. In the industrial 4.0 era, the development of an intelligent manufacturing business model is driven by satisfying customer needs and intelligent algorithms. Enterprises are desirous of adapting a product to the personalized needs of customers to the maximum possible extent. Thus, they increase production configuration diversity, and this leads to increased cost and less efficiency. In order to improve the economy and efficiency of production, this paper proposes an intelligent type-decreased mass customized product configuration method with an improved fuzzy clustering algorithm that combines the Kano’s model and social inertia. The Kano’s model is improved, and social inertia is introduced into the product configuration to adapt to customer psychology and gain better configuration results. We apply this intelligent proposed algorithm to the design of a tablet PC and verify that the improved algorithm is operable and effective in dealing with customer demands and decreases in the variety of products.