Extending the Theoretical Framework of Mass Customization: Initial and Adaptive Solution Space Development for High-Variety Production Environments

Abstract

In today’s markets, customer needs are becoming increasingly heterogeneous. In response to the diverse customer needs, companies are oftentimes forced to offer a broad product variety in order to meet the individual demands of their customers. Being confronted with such a business environment, manufacturers need to establish new business models that are capable of dealing with high levels of heterogeneity, such as mass customization. However, as offering limitless choice is economically unfeasible, manufacturers have to develop a suitable solution space by clearly defining which product variants will be offered and which options will be explicitly excluded from the firm’s offering. In this context, this paper introduces the distinction between initial and adaptive solution space development (before and after market launch) and discusses the interrelation between these two modes of defining a product offering for high-variety production environments.