Mass Customization

Mass Customization examines the business opportunities, considerations, and challenges manufacturers in various industries must weigh before committing to the significant investment in machinery and software needed to go to mass customization. For manufacturers who decide that it’s time to take the plunge, the author describes the proven methods and latest technologies for making mass customization work seamlessly and profitably on the factory floor. Mass customization—the automated manufacturing bespoke products, profitably combining the low unit costs of mass production with the flexibility of building custom products to order—has been touted as the next big thing for more than a quarter of a century. Until recently, however, mass customization made only modest inroads in a few industries. Now, the convergence of new ICT and manufacturing technologies with traditional CNC technologies means that mass customization’s moment has arrived for breaking out into a wide range of industries. Hans Kull is an engineer and mathematician who applies his expertise in combinatorial optimization, programming, and engineering to devising end-to-end automated solutions for mass customization, automating and optimizing all processes—from bespoke parts supply, order processing, production, and waste minimization to packing and delivery. He shares with his readers practical lessons for making mass customization succeed, case studies from various industries, and an insider’s vision of the business implications of mass customization’s coming of age.

Mass Customization excites both Researchers and Practitioners because of the possibility to produce customized products with mass production efficiency. Mass Customization - An Exploration of European Characteristics gives an overview on the need for personalisation from a customer perspective, analyses Mass Customization theories and assesses relevant best practices of European and International markets. The results of a survey among more than 500 European customers show a declining willingness of customers to compromise on the issue of suitability of products to their personal needs and preferences, the possibility for companies to break brand loyalty and the influence of immediate availability, delivery time and price to the customer's willingness to take part in the co-creation process. Mass Customization has become important to business because of the difficulties of customers to find what they want despite an increase in product variety for many products over the past decades. The emergence of modern technologies in production and communication, however, allows companies to produce customized products without relinquishing economies of scale. With only few companies having taken this promising path, the authors believe that Mass Customization and Mass Customization related marketing strategies will play an essential role in the future and prompt both market leaders and their competitors to offer customization on a large scale for a vast variety of products.

This book defines the parameters of the emerging business strategy of mass customization, covering the main categories in a systematic examination of: manufacturing systems and mass customization; supply chain management and mass customization; and information systems and mass customization. The book provides a conceptual framework for mass customization, its tools, its solutions, and real-world examples of successful implementations of the business strategy.

Mass Customization: A Supply Chain Approach is a text on the emerging topic of mass customization in manufacturing. The contributed chapters in this book provide a unified treatment to the topic by offering coverage in four main categories - concepts and current state of research; problem solving frameworks, models, and methodologies; supportive techniques and technologies for enabling mass customization; and future research agenda. The book blends theory and practice and includes prototypical applications to illustrate this complex, yet emerging field of inquiry.

Mass Customization and Footwear: Myth, Salvation or Reality is the only book dedicated to the application of mass customization in a particular industry. By showing examples of how a "mature" manufacturing sector like shoe making can be thoroughly renovated in business and mentality by applying this paradigm; Mass Customization and Footwear: Myth, Salvation or Reality will be bought by practitioners in the footwear sector and postgraduates, researchers and lecturers in the area of mass customization.

A growing heterogeneity of demand, the advent of ';long tail markets';, exploding product complexities, and the rise of creative consumers are challenging companies in all industries to find new strategies to address these trends. Mass customization (MC) has emerged in the last decade as the premier strategy for companies in all branches of industry to profit from heterogeneity of demand and a broad scope of other customer demands.The research and practical experience collected in this book presents the latest thinking on how to make mass customization work. More than 50 authors from academia and management debate on what is viable now, what did not work in the past, and what lurks just below the radar in mass customization, personalization, and related fields.Edited by two leading authorities in the field of mass customization, both volumes of the book discuss, among many other themes, the latest research and insights on customization strategies, product design for mass customization, virtual models, co-design toolkits, customization value measurement, open source architecture, customization communities, and MC supply chains. Through a number of detailed case studies, prominent examples of mass customization are explained and evaluated in larger context and perspective.

"This book describes original, innovative works on IT systems for mass customization, and provides a multitude of solutions, tools, concepts and successful realizations of IT systems for mass customization. It discusses state-of-the-art mass customization while depicting the importance of IT in making the strategy function efficiently in order to support the business processes required for manufacturing individualized products"--Provided by publisher.

The Digital Bespoke? is about mass customization, 3D printing, human bodies, and the step towards digitally built objects made to individual specifications. The author argues that the modes of customization offered by digital fabrication and mass production have more in common with their industrial predecessors than with craft-based customization. Using case studies of historical and current practices from Europe, Africa, and North America to ground her theory, she investigates where digital fabrication technologies have developed from and how their uses differ from existing modes of production. Digital fabrication and mass customization are concepts encompassing broad ecosystems of technologies and practices. Both are increasingly implemented and hyped. As such, it is imperative to address not just their potential, but their challenges. Written for a scholarly audience and for design practitioners concerned with the social and political impacts of digital fabrication and mass customization, this book will be a useful reference point for students and researchers in digital and analogue design, technology, and material culture.