Mass Customization: A Review of the Paradigm Across Marketing, Engineering and Distribution Domains

Abstract

Introduced nearly 25 years ago, the paradigm of mass customization (MC) has largely not lived up to its promise. Despite great strides in information technology, engineering design practice, and manufacturing production, the necessary process innovations that can produce products and systems with sufficient customization and economic efficiency have yet to be found in wide application. In this paper, the state-of-the-art in MC is explored in order to answer the question of “why not?” and to highlight areas for specific research in the MC paradigm. To establish perspective for this work, we consider MC to be a product development approach which allows for the production of goods — after a customer places an order — which minimize the tradeoff between the ideal product and the available product by fulfilling the needs and preferences of individuals functionally, emotionally and anthropologically. Results of this research were generated by reviewing 88 papers from various journals that span three domains of interest (marketing, engineering, and distribution) and explore proposed methodologies, specific information inputs and outputs, proposed metrics, and barriers toward the implementation of MC. Qualitatively, we show that the lack of MC in application is due to two factors: 1) a lack of marketing tools capable of capturing individual needs that can be mapped to the technical space; and 2) a lack of information relation mechanisms that connect the domains of marketing, engineering, and distribution. In the end it is our belief that MC is realizable and that eventually it will emerge as a dominant paradigm in the design and delivery of products and systems. However, pursuing the opportunities for research presented in this work will hopefully speed this emergence.

Quantifying Customer Sacrifice for Use in Product Customization Problems

“…In the context of this paper, mass customization is defined as "a method to provide consumers with custom goods (and services) at prices consistent with mass production" [7]. This definition is then broken down into two components: 1) the characteristics of the custom good provided, and 2) the ability of the firm to provide this custom good at a price consistent with mass production.…”

Exploring online customization of a high involvement experience product

“…consumer appliances, automotive) have not lived up to their promise nor reached wide spread application (Ferguson et al, 2014). Lack of research on assessing user needs and preferences in the context of MC (Guilabert, 2005), and customer readiness to adopt customization has been acknowledged (Ferguson et al 2010). These are critical aspects for companies to consider as they may influence both the decision on whether or not to pursue MC in the first place, as well the amount and approach to customization that will be utilized.…”

“…Poor understanding of the needs of target markets hinders to realize the quality improvements of customized products that are enabled by product con gurator (Trentin et al, 2011). In addition, Ferguson et al (2010) point out that customer readiness in itself is a natural barrier to the MC of any product and must be quantified before any implementation. For this reasons, there is opportunity for more research approach development that is focused on assessing needs and preferences of consumers in the context of MC (Ferguson et al, 2014).…”

Market-System Design Optimization With Consider-Then-Choose Models

“…In order to forecast profits engineering researchers have integrated generalized linear models that predict customer choice share for potential products. Discrete choice analysis (DCA) [5][6][7] is most commonly used, with implementations adopting a variant of the logit or probit models [4,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”