Introduction: Mass Customization Thinking: Moving from Pilot Stage to an Established Business Strategy

Frank Piller and Mitchell Tseng
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Frank Piller: RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Mitchell Tseng: Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Hong Kong

Chapter 1 in Handbook of Research in Mass Customization and Personalization:(In 2 Volumes), 2009, pp 1-18 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: AbstractMass customization regards heterogeneities of demand among different customers not as a threat, but as a new opportunity for profits. To capture this value, however, a firm has to obtain a specific set of capabilities to address the challenges of such a business. In this chapter, we first define the core concepts of mass customization and personalization and briefly discuss their background and state of implementation in industry. We also present a set of challenges that many companies are facing when entering a mass customization business. We argue that companies have to obtain competences along three sets of distinctive capabilities to address these challenges. The term ‘mass customization thinking’ is introduced to denote practices in companies that follow these capabilities in order to profit from customer heterogeneities. In the second part of this chapter, we provide a comprehensive overview of the research presented in this handbook.

Keywords: Mass Customization; Personalization; Engineer-to-Order; Open Innovation; User Co-Creation; Modularity; Platform Design; Customer Centricity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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