Endang Retno Wedowati, Moses LaksonoSinggih dan I Ketut Gunarta
ABSTRACT
Food industry plays an important role in order to satisfy community needs with respect to availability, distribution and quality of food. To meet the needs of different consumers, manufacturers need to adapt products and services to fit their needs. Food processing industry has the typicalcharacteristics, due to the nature of the food products that are relatively perishable, bulky and seasonal; therefore these characteristics have to be handled properly. This paper aims to review the previous studies on the food industry, production systemin food industry, as well as the possibility of mass customization application in food industry. Production patterns of food processing industry are marked with different products structure, in which a small number of raw materials can be used to produce a variety of end products according to customer’s request. System of food processing industry generally involves a two-stage process i.e.:processing and mixing. The processing stage often involves processing of intermediate product. While on mixing stage,intermediate products are blended into a formulated final product. Literature study shows that the study on the production system in food industry discussed the scope of production planning and scheduling, make to stock-make to order strategy, the concept of decoupling point, the concept of postponement, as well as related issue of the mass customization (MC) application in the food industry. So far, there are not many studies of mass customization on food industry. Therefore it is necessary to study the possibility of mass customization application on food industry, the advantages, as well as the strategies that can be performed related to the characteristics of typical food industry. Furthermore, to develop appropriate production systems and production planning to handle an increase in variation of products.
Keywords: food industry, production system, mass customization, perishable product