Solution Space

The solution space was identified as a critical area for improvement in the gap analysis. The CT's partially apply six practices that could still be improved. Regarding the assessment of practice 28, "define the customisation units based on the balance between the potential value-adding to customers and its feasibility and operations costs", the CT defines the solution space based on their previous experience with customers, considering general definitions made by the company for the segmen<sup>t</sup> and the return of investment. However, Company P has no systematic way to assess the value-adding potential of customisation units, neither discuss its feasibility and operations costs with all stakeholders. This criticism corroborates the findings of Fettermann et al. [25].

Practice 29, "IT tools and choice menu to enable customers to choose, configure and be integrated into the NPD", was assessed as partially applied with improvements to be done. Its application has evolved significantly during this research study, by the development of a simplified choice menu. However, some additional improvements opportunities were identified, regarding the visualisation of the product alternatives.

Some of the identified practices provided insights on how to overcome improvement opportunities. For instance, "Promote multidisciplinary discussions, among di fferent departments and stakeholders" (practice 26), should be used to overcome the poor communication among stakeholders regarding customisation issues. The CT suggested some inter-department seminars to increase awareness about their work. As discussed by Kotha (1995), the information exchange between coworkers and cross-training can support the conversion of tacit into explicit knowledge and foster the adoption of practices and organisational learning. Another practice that was poorly adopted by Company P was "refine solution space according to previous experience in other projects" (practice27), meaning that lessons from previous projects were only learned informally.

#### Customer Interaction and Relationship

The practices related to customer interaction and relationship have significantly evolved over the empirical study. In fact, this decision category was concerned with an important role played by the customisation department, as the CT had the mission of establishing a good relationship with customers, as well as dealing with some reported problems related to customisation during NPD.

A strength of Company P's customer integration strategy was to "establish a dialogue between customers and the company's representatives for configuring the product ... " (practice 37), which was mentioned by customers in the interviews and by the CT during the meetings. Customers mentioned that having a dialogue with the CT and engineers was an important source of information, which made it easier to choose customisation units and created trust. Additionally, several customers seemed to like the customisation service because of its convenience, reducing the time to move in and the need to deal with further construction works. At the end of the empirical study, this dialogue was aided by the combination of di fferent visualisation approaches, such as the product prototype (practice 42), finishing material samples and the choice menu (practice 41).

The CT pointed out that practice 35, "have meetings with customers for product configuration", was implemented for product types D and E during the collaboration period. During those meetings, the architects explained the solution space and established a dialogue for configuring the unit, but without having the chance to show the prototype for customers.

Three improvement opportunities related to three practices that were considered as "not applied but intended": "advertise the possibility of customisation ... " (practices 31), "use product catalogues for advertising and informing customers about the product and customisation process" (practice 40), and "clearly define interactions with customers and display them in a customer journey" (practice 33). In fact, the possibility of customisation was timidly mentioned in project information at the company website, and it was not always announced in the open day invitations. Interviews and observations in open days confirmed this fact, as several customers had only been informed of the possibility of customising their housing unit during that day, being surprised and confused.

Therefore, the company could improve communication regarding the possibility of customising residential units, to avoid confusion and increase transparency and trust in the relationship with customers. These shortcomings are also related to the lack of clarity about customers' involvement in the customisation process.
