Mass customization

   

Mass customization, in marketing, is the use of flexible computer-aided manufacturing systems to produce custom output. These systems combine the low unit costs of mass production processes with the flexibility of individual customization.

There are four types of mass customization:

  • Collaborative customization - firms talk to individual customers to determine the precise product offering that best serves the customer's needs (see personalized marketing and personal marketing orientation). This information is then used to specify and manufacture a product that suits that specific customer. For example, some clothing companies will manufacture blue jeans to fit an individual customer.
  • Adaptive customization - firms produce a standardized product, but this product is customizable in the hands of the end-user (the customers alter the product themselves)
  • Transparent customization - firms provide individual customers with unique products, without explicitly telling them that the products are customized. In this case there is a need to accurately assess customer needs.
  • Cosmetic customization - firms produce a standardized physical product, but market it to different customers in unique ways.


see also: personalized marketing, marketing, product differentiation, product management, personal marketing orientation, manufacturing


Defintion of Mass Customization by Tseng and Jiao:

producing goods and services to meet individual customer's needs with near mass production effiency (Source: Tseng, M.M., Jiao, J. (2001): Mass Customization, in: Handbook of Industrial Engineering, Technology and Operation Management, 2001, 3rd. ed., p.685; ISBN: 0471330574)

Mr Joseph Pine II described in his book 'Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition' this paradigma at the beginng of the 90s. Pine suggested a business model called 8-figure-path which consider the way from 1.Invention, over 2.Mass Production, 3.Contionous Improvement, to 4.Mass Customization and back to 1.


own adds: Nowadays we can observe many implementation like software-based 'product configuraters' which make it possible to add and/or change functionalities of a core product (Example: http://www.landsend.com/ ). But not yet in every branche. If a enterprise's marketing department offers individual products (atomic market fragmentation) it doesn't mean that a product is produced individually because of it is rather a variety production. Example: If an automotive company talks about individual cars they imply individual assembling of a car but only at the last stage within the manufacturing process. That wouldn't include an individual wish of a special auto body. Auto body production is, firstly, a fully automated welding process, and secondly, one of the first processes in creation of value. A frequently change of an automated production process would include a frequenly set-up change within programming, tools and apparatuses. Try it, call a automotive company and ask them for a personalized auto body, and tell them you would only pay an economy price!

Individualism will constraint enterprises at all times to new competition advantages that will conflict with the long-term trend of lack of ressources and its reactively restrictions. (U.H.)


WWW-Sources:



List of Marketing TopicsList of Management Topics
List of Economics TopicsList of Accounting Topics
List of Finance TopicsList of Economists

Retrieved from "http://www.centipedia.com/articles/Mass_customization"

This page has been accessed 532 times. This page was last modified 00:42, 21 Nov 2004. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).