manufacturers this came at a good time since the rise of car ownership had impacted heavily on traditional markets.It opened up a phase of product differentiation-broadly into leisure and transport cycling but within these categories into multiple variants. (We should not understimate the process innovation challenges posed by trying to do this. For example, the National Bicycle Company of Japan now offer 18 basice of 19 colours and 6 different calligraphies-giving a staggering potential choice of 11,231,862 variants!)
This case is based on work by the open university/UMIST Design and Innovation Group.