Implementing Mass Customization Research Articles

Apparel Mass Customization Digital Natives: New Insights into Development and Technology Implementation

Despite advancements in manufacturing and information technologies along with innovative operating models and engineering designs, apparel mass customization (MC) has mostly not lived up to its expectations. The main goal of this study is to explore digital native apparel MC companies and establish relevant insights concerning development and technology implementation. The study starts by facilitating a comprehensive literature review to explore apparel MC and related technologies, combined with exploring its implementation in different successful digital native cases. Following a descriptive-analytical approach, this paper offered insights into current technology implementation and utilization in the apparel MC industry, and then classifies their practices from low to high technology adoption. Moreover, by exploring real world cases, the paper developed insights on technology application of MC, which can guide strategic directions in order to accelerate a successful implementation of MC in the apparel industry.

Process Modularity Impact on Manufacturing Lead Time and Throughput Rate in Terms of Mass Customization

As mass customization becomes more pervasive in many sectors, researchers need to update traditional approaches to the optimization of critical performance and design parameters in order to help companies in their effort to implement this strategy. In general, implementation of mass customization from a manufacturing perspective is frequently focused on shortening cycle times, reducing production cost, and increasing throughput rate of parts. In this paper, process structure modularity impact on manufacturing lead times and throughput rates is explored. An important precondition to explore these relationships is the awareness that process modularity is conceptualized and quantified in an appropriate way. For this purpose, three independent modularity measures were employed to provide more reliable assessment of this system property. The relationships were investigated on the basis of simulation experiments using deterministic models of alternative process structures. For the purpose of the relationships exploration, two case studies were conducted, theoretical and practical ones. The results from the experiments showed that there are moderate correlations between process modularity and manufacturing lead time (ρ = −0.45), as well as between process modularity and throughput rate (ρ = 0.45).

Evolution Study Of Mass Customization And Its SWOT Analysis For Business Management Practices

This paper checks challenges and prospectus related to mass customization as a management tool for growth of business. The mass production and customize production are two opposite poles for style of production. So, when we going for mass customization that means both extremities are getting balanced and meeting in between somewhere.
 The firms need some management tool which can enable them to achieve high productivity with lean losses and full customer delight. The managers also believe that along with external customers, the internal customership contains the same weightage of importance. And the challenge is, this management tool should support both external and internal customer delight. The mass customization has capability to cater this challenge of modern managers.
 The study of literature about mass customization was carried out. And it’s found that while implementing mass customization firms faced many challenges and ripped advantages too. The implementation is done either in all areas of management or for some localized department. For this research paper, based on the literature review Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat (SWOT) analysis is carried out to check out how mass customization can enhance management results in growth of business. A successful implementation of mass customization is not as easy as it looks, but its implementation can be a game changer.
 Many industries, mainly automobile industries, have already implemented mass customization for supply of parts as they must deliver a product in large numbers. Many other implementations of mass customization are operational today, such as software-based product configurations that make it possible to add and/or change functionalities of a core product or to build fully customized assembled products start to end. These are not perfect mass customization examples in the original sense, but they achieved the point of balance between mass production and customized production.
 As SWOT analysis reveals there are many strengthening examples and plenty of opportunities waiting to get explored for mass customizations in management domain. The company can create a great impact by developing customer-trusted brands. And this can be done with strategic implementation of mass customization in different domains of management like productivity, resource management, supply chain etc. In the era of industry 4.0, a win-win situation can be achieved by achieving economization of scale and customer delight by implementing mass customization.

The Evidence of a Thai Restaurant's Mass Customization Implementation for Firm Survival During the Pandemic Crisis

To survive in any crisis, business owners and executives must be able to adapt and change in all aspects of business functions, especially in the marketing function. The aim of the study is to investigate an efficient marketing strategy to provide the implementation for firms' survival. To explore the advantages and how to manage a mass customization strategy in the restaurant business during a pandemic period. The authors conducted the research by selecting restaurants that have proven successful and exploring the key success management factors for further proof. The results show that the moderator, customer collaboration management, of the restaurant sector has a positive impact on the relationship between consumption experience and customer satisfaction through customer engagement. Additionally, the result indicates that the strategic and process implications during a crisis must be tailored to the sub-stages.

Synchronisation of material flows in mass-customised production systems: a literature-based classification framework and industrial application

The mass customisation strategy is needed by manufacturing companies to face the increasing variety and unpredictability of products required by customers. However, mass customisation may increase the complexity of managing manufacturing and production logistics activities, for example due to reduced product batch sizes. The synchronisation of material flows within the factory is emerging as a way to address this complexity, as it enables an effective and efficient implementation of mass customisation. Indeed, the fourth Industrial Revolution introduces new digital levers, which can be combined with traditional managerial levers to achieve the synchronisation of material flows within the factory. This study contributes to the rising stream of research on this topic. A systematic literature review was conducted, leading to the development of a classification framework of the levers supporting the synchronisation of material flows. The identified managerial levers are: storage of materials, feeding policy, and scheduling. The digital levers are: materials tracking, process tracking, data analytics, and assistance systems. The developed framework was operationalised in four industrial cases and applied as a tool to map their levers related to the synchronisation of material flows.

Operationalizing Mass Customization in Manufacturing SMEs—A Systematic Literature Review

With the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution, market globalization, and growing customer demands, companies are being forced to rethink their ways of doing business to remain competitive. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector must also adapt to personalized customer demands. This context forces companies to migrate towards mass customization. The literature proposes several strategies for adapting to this new paradigm but does not offer an implementation sequence for successfully operationalizing mass customization within an SME. Based on a systematic review of the themes surrounding Industry 4.0 and mass customization in the literature, this article aims to highlight the different strategies and factors to be put in place to successfully implement mass customization. This research reveals the lack of a prioritization of factors that favour the operationalization of mass customization. Lastly, the literature does not detail the tools and their levels of maturity resulting from the factors to be implemented. This article highlights the gaps in the literature related to mass customization.

SMART SOLUTION FOR OPTIMIZED MASS CUSTOMIZATION PROCESS IN SMART PHONE INDUSTRY

The concept of mass customization envisages a firm pursuing differentiation vis-à-vis its competitors in the form of its customized solutions to the consumers, and at the same time adopting cost-effective measures to bring down the cost of production of those solutions. Mass customization has proved to be a path-breaking approach in many industries like fashion, footwear and computer. In this paper, we aim to cover the possibilities of mass customization in the smartphone industry at the hardware, software as well as OS level. We will also cover how, by implementing mass customization, smartphone companies can save costs of finished goods inventories, and at the same time, increase consumers’ willingness to pay by providing them with customized solutions. This paper proposes a smart solution for implementing mass customization through mathematical formulation and aims to detect the optimized groups and cost estimation.

Synergies between Mass Customisation and Construction 4.0 Technologies

A challenge faced by some companies in the residential building sector is to cope with the complexity introduced to respond to the increasing diversity of customer demands in a profitable and sustainable way. Mass customisation (MC) has been described as a strategy to deliver customised products at costs and delivery times similar to mass production. The implementation of this strategy can be supported by several information and communication technologies emerging in the Industry 4.0 paradigm, which has been named Construction 4.0 in the construction industry. The aim of this research work is to identify the synergistic potential between Construction 4.0 technologies and the implementation of MC practices in the construction sector. A decision matrix associating a set of MC practices and C4.0 technologies has been devised based on a literature review. Specialists assessed the relationships between items, and the Jaccard similarity index was calculated to understand which Construction 4.0 technologies should be jointly implemented to support MC strategies. As a secondary contribution, this study has also proposed a method to guide companies in the identification of technologies that can support the implementation of MC in specific contexts.

How to adopt mass customization strategy: Understanding the role of consumers’ perceived brand value

How to make a suitable decision by balancing the benefits and costs of Mass customization (MC) has been widely discussed by scholars. While with the development of information and production technology, some traditional factors that affect firms’ MC decisions have significantly changed. Meanwhile, consumers’ brand recognition is playing an increasingly important role in consumers’ purchase decisions. Motivated by the new conditions, we develop an analytical model to investigate how a firm’s MC decisions are affected by consumers’ perceived brand value and customization cost. The solution of the benchmark model shows that (i) if brand loss outweighs maximal travel cost, the firm generally abandons MC even if MC is costless; (ii) the firm is more likely to adopt MC when the impact of MC on perceived brand value is positive; (iii) a higher customization level may not imply a higher price, but the firm always obtains higher profit with the increase of customization level, and (iv) the implementation of MC may derive an economically inefficient situation. As an extension, we consider a scenario where consumers have heterogeneous attitudes toward the impact of MC on brand value and find that: (i) the main conclusions in the benchmark model are still valid; and (ii) consumers’ heterogeneous attitudes toward brand value can benefit themselves.

INVESTIGATING BARRIERS IN ADOPTION OF MASS CUSTOMIZATION IN CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SECTOR IN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE

Mass customization (MC) offers tailor-made services to customers and necessary for industries in current global competition. However, implementation of MC is at nascent stage particularly in consumer electronics. This study investigates barriers in adoption of MC in context with developing economies such as India. There are quite a few barriers which may affect implementation of MC. Through literature survey and experts' opinion 15 barriers has been identied. DEMATEL method was used to nd cause-effect relationship between these barriers. Also most signicant barriers has been identied as Lack of nancial support, Lack of awareness of use of Information Technology in MC, Not availability of machines supporting MC, Lack of support from top management, and Lack of trained & skilled manpower. This study guides policy maker and managers in understanding the challenges in implementation of MC in emerging economies.

Implementation of mass customization for competitive advantage in Indian industries: an empirical investigation.

The enduring fluctuations in market demand, exemplified by exceedingly unpredictable customer requirements, have given rise to mass customization (MC), which is acquiring increasing prominence in production and operations management. Fostering on the foundation laid by erstwhile researcher Hart in Int J Serv Ind Manag 6:36–45 [1], who developed an analytical framework of four pillars of mass customization for organizations, the objective of this research is to obtain additional discernments on the nature of the linkage between the four pillars and MC. The current work is to explain ability of manufacturing organization for MC. Further, the paper proposes the impact of MC on organization performance with a view to develop an assessment and decision-making model to achieve competitiveness. The analysis of 276 valid responses from Indian professional experts was done using structural equation modeling (Amos Graphics). The results showed that process amenability, competitive environment, and organizational readiness all have a major impact on mass customization. The study, on the other hand, did not support customer sensitivity, which could be because mass customization is a new manufacturing paradigm in India.

Guidelines for the Implementation of Mass Customization in Affordable House-Building Projects

Mass customization (MC) is a business strategy that stands for the ability to develop high value-added products within short time frames and at relatively low costs. It emerged from the manufacturing industry and has been applied to several industrial sectors, including housing. However, the segment of affordable housing programs in developing countries has been criticized for having a high degree of product standardization, and failure to meet customers’ specific needs. The aim of this paper is to propose guidelines for implementing mass customization in affordable house-building projects. It is based on a design science research study carried out in a small-sized company, which explored the possibility of adopting mass customization ideas to offer some flexibility for customers while maintaining low costs. The main contributions of this research study are concerned with expanding the current understanding of the components that enable MC to be implemented in the context of house-building companies that adopt traditional construction technologies. From a practical perspective, this investigation outlines several practices that can be introduced for the implementation of MC strategies at a relatively low cost by small-sized house-building companies.

Towards a mass customization in the fashion industry: An evolutionary decision aid model for apparel product platform design and optimization

To meet the diverse needs of customers with a competitive offering, many companies are utilizing product families and platform-based product development to increase variety, shorten lead times and reduce costs. However, current research in this area does not sufficiently examine broader enterprise considerations, such as production and inventory management complexity and costs, or expected sales. Furthermore, very few existing platform design methods integrate fitting and ergonomic considerations in their formulation.This study proposes a two-stage platform-based design process to support apparel brands to implement mass customization (MC) strategies. This work has been conducted in collaboration with Yamamay, an Italian underwear and lingerie brand. In the first stage, the characteristics of a scale-based platform (i.e. the number of product variants) are determined based on (i) the results of the anthropometric analysis of a large Italian female population sample, (ii) business considerations discussed together with brand managers and experts, (iii) and benchmarking data. In the second stage, a novel and ad-hoc developed evolutionary-based decision aid model stretches and shrinks the resulting classes looking for the optimal trade-off based on anthropometric data between the demand of garments that fit well and the percentage of the population that is satisfied with the proposed product family.The approach proposed here has been proved effective not only in theory but also in practice through a pilot launch of a test product family. Integrating scale-based platform design of apparel with ergonomic, production, inventory, and sales considerations makes this study unique and paves the way for the implementation of customization-as-a-service business model and for the transformation of the fashion industry into a technology- and knowledge-intensive industry.

Mass-customisation of cross-laminated timber wall systems at early design stages

Low profitability of the building industry has driven the adoption of industrialised production methods in this sector. In an industrialised context, mass-customisation (MC) is a set of strategies aimed to offer tailored products at prices close to those of mass-production. MC can be achieved through integrating market knowledge and supply-chain processes into the building design. Nonetheless, the MC-related literature is slim in optimising designs for such an integration. The goal is to find optimal design configurations for the load-bearing spanning systems that incur minimum product waste and manufacturing process waste. The paper uses Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) buildings as cases of highly prefabricated systems. The preliminary layout of a building is first mathematically modelled. Then, genetic algorithms are adapted to optimise wall dimensions and billet cutting plan. The example case demonstrated significant waste reduction compared to the building industry benchmarks. This highlights the practical benefits of the systematical implementation of MC from the early design stages. The present study contributes to the body of knowledge by introducing a novel design support tool that facilitates the adoption of MC in the building industry.

Integrating lean production strategies, virtual reality technique and building information modeling method for mass customization in cabinet manufacturing

PurposeIn response to increasing demand for a fully customized and individualized home environment, mass customization (MC) has been suggested as an effective strategy to fulfill the customer’s customization needs while keeping production cost-effectiveness. However, in current practice, the implementation of the MC in the industrialized housing industry has not achieved an ideal level. Little effort was devoted to customer value generation and achieving lean production in a multi-disciplinary MC environment. In this concern, a highly efficient and flexible production information system is expected to capture accurately the customer’s demand and efficiently perform work planning for encouraging customer involvement and mass efficiency production.Design/methodology/approachTo gain an insight into the development of the MC production information system for the housing industry and to depict the interaction among system modules, this study used a design science research methodology for a case study of customized cabinet production information system development.FindingsA prototype of the production information system was proposed in this paper, supported by three information technologies to facilitate the MC implementation in the millwork manufacturer. A focus group discussion method was carried out for evaluating the system feasibility and the subsequent survey analysis on the virtual reality (VR) interface experiment. The evaluation process results showed that the VR interface is an effective medium for design information communication and encourages customer involvement. Most participants believed that the proposed production information system could generally benefit the MC implementation and improve production efficiency.Originality/valueThis study integrated lean production principles along with building information modelling, VR and discrete-event simulation in the production information system to assist the manufacturer in effectively handling variant product information and enabling quicker reactions in response to diverse customer requirements in housing industries. The coordination among system modules and the managed information flow could be a valuable reference for future MC production system development in housing industries.

Development of mass customization implementation guidelines for small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

Mass customization (MC), an organization’s ability to provide customized products and services that fulfil each customer’s idiosyncratic needs without considerable trade-offs in cost, delivery and quality, is gaining importance among companies. To help practitioners on the complex path towards MC, academic research has provided some guidelines for MC implementation. Recent reviews in this research sub-stream underlined the lack of MC implementation guidelines (MC-IGs) specifically developed for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and also indicated the opportunity to use the design science research (DSR) strategy to develop new MC-IGs. The present research answers call for new MC-IGs by developing maturity grid-based MC implementation guidelines for SMEs that comply with the MC-IG building blocks and the MC-IG properties indicated by Suzić, Forza, et al. . The development of such guidelines followed a DSR strategy that included short- and long-term observational evaluations in two SMEs over three years.

A TISM approach for the analysis of enablers in implementing mass customization in Indian manufacturing units

Mass Customization is a generic business strategy for organizational excellence and organizations striving for competitive advantage are incorporating MC into their business model. Though research has been done to identify enablers of mass customization, there has been an associated degree of study in conceptual papers while theory-building articles are less in number. Also, less study has been done in the Indian market scenario. The literature show that organizations are apprehensive of their technological potentials and are not taking initiative to transform themselves from conventional mass manufacturing companies to mass customization for emerging market needs. As a response to this research gap, a systematic literature review is conducted on enablers for MC and Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM) and MICMAC analysis is used to develop a framework that illustrates how enablers are placed at different levels and how a particular enabler influences the other or getting influenced. Supporting this insight, a theory for accomplishing mass customization in manufacturing units is established. The theory is verified from experts by structured questionnaire from three Indian manufacturing companies where Mass customization is being practiced. This paper renders a summary of the methodology and specifies its validation in three case study companies. Practices are suggested to reinforce the attainment of mass customization in organizations aspiring to implement mass customization.

Cross-phase product configurator for modular buildings using kit-of-parts

One emerging strategy in industrialized construction is the use of mass customization to increase product efficiency without sacrificing design flexibility. Effective implementation of mass customization can be done through a product platform, i.e. a configurator. However, existing configurators often lack integration of knowledge from the downstream supply chain such as manufacturing. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for a configurator unified through a manufacturing kit-of-parts. Kit-of-parts are pre-engineered and pre-designed digital models representing fabrication-ready components. Using production rules and restraints, accurate planning and design representations can be derived and utilized in the configurator. This research develops a configurator prototype using three-tier architecture. The prototype supports a low-to-high level of detail of kit-of-parts. It integrates product platforms and project development across multiple building phases including site planning, floor plan layout, and 3D model generation. Finally, the implementation of a modular building configurator illustrates the benefits of the proposed configurator-based workflow.

Analyzing the barriers to implementation of mass customization in Indian SMEs using integrated ISM-MICMAC and SEM

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to identify the crucial barriers to the implementation of mass customization (MC) in Indian SMEs and to investigate the interactions among them so that important managerial implications could be formulated to facilitate the implementation of MC in SMEs.Design/methodology/approachThe contextual relationships and hierarchies of the barriers are established through the interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach, and MICMAC analysis has been used to classify the barriers into different groups. Further, structural equation modelling based on partial least squares (PLS-SEM) has been applied to statistically validate the ISM model using the data collected through a questionnaire-based survey of Indian organizations.FindingsA portfolio of barriers, containing 16 items, has been identified from the literature review and a series of semi-structured interviews of practitioners. The study develops a structural model by establishing relationships and imposing directions among the barriers and classifies the barriers according to their driving and dependence power to serve as a roadmap for SMEs willing to implement MC into practice.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the critical barriers which have a significant impact on other barriers and need to be handled at priority. Also, the present research renders insights to SMEs to better prioritize their efforts and resources to overcome these barriers.Originality/valueThis research happens to be first in the MC literature that investigates the key barriers responsible for hindering the implementation of MC in SMEs and develops a statistically validated contextual model showing hierarchies and relationships of the barriers.

Barriers and enablers to food mass customization

PurposeThis study is to propose a procedure to support decisions on which enablers should be employed to minimize the impact of barriers to implementing mass customization strategies in food companies.Design/methodology/approachThrough interpretive structural modeling, the authors analyzed the relationships between barriers. Then, with an approach similar to the quality function deployment technique, commonly used in general product and process development, the authors clarified the relationships between barriers and enablers.FindingsThe results revealed 19 barriers and 17 enablers for implementing food mass customization. The analysis indicates that most of the barriers (16) present strong associations with each other. The barrier “products with non-customizable features” depends on the whole chain of associations and causes a minor impact on the other barriers. In turn, the barrier “ingredient incompatibility” causes impact over the whole chain, and its dependence on other barriers is very low.Research limitations/implicationsThe results were tested in a single Brazilian company in the food sector.Practical implicationsThe findings can allow food manufacturing companies to focus their efforts on the improvement of enabling technologies, such as smart packaging, Internet of Things and additive manufacture.Social implicationsThis study would help food companies to improve their business and provide better products to society.Originality/valueThere are few recommendations in the literature to how to implement mass customization strategy in companies from the food sector. This study fills in this gap presenting a procedure to guide managerial staff to develop this promising approach for food companies.