Abstract
As today customers start to show preferences to products that reflect their own personalities and interests, we had earlier proposed and built a system called, Internet-based Consumer-oriented Ordering system, equipped with a data mining-based recommender system, where by customer can determine the specifications of a product based on their interests. However, in case where by customers do not possess knowledge regarding certain product specifications, it is not easy for them to be certain that the specification determined suits their needs or not. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to classify the products based on various customer's needs which include functional, usability and esthetics needs, thus narrowing down the choices of specifications and make the specification determination process more simple and precise. In this paper, we examine the nature of product architecture, study how a range of products can be classified under various product evaluation standards from customer's points of view, and find an effective way to classify a product and its specification. With the existence of this framework of product classification, it can be acted as a catalyst for performance of design work on the internet especially for custom-made product, thus bringing the manufacturing industry closer to BtoC (Business to Customer) approach.
