Mass Customization's Missing Link

This article focuses on the missing link in mass customization. Mass customization has not really caught on yet because of a missing link—knowing how to actually design and build mass-customized products. The solution is concurrently engineering product families and flexible processes so any product variation within a family can be built on-demand using common parts that are always available. Accomplishing this requires some new and different strategies: production strategy, supply chain strategy, design strategy, and marketing strategy. The production strategy aims to build any variation in a product family on demand economically, which requires versatile flexible processes without expensive setup charges or delays. Supply chain strategy assures that all parts, modules, and materials must be always nearby and spontaneously resupplied by using some specific techniques. Design strategy concurrently engineers the design of the product families and their flexible processes to build customized products on-demand from common parts and materials. Marketing strategy identifies product families that have a need for mass-customized products and can be economically built on demand.