Mass Customization

What Is Mass Customization?

Mass customization is the method involved with delivering market goods and services that are modified to fulfill a specific customer's necessities. Mass customization is a marketing and manufacturing technique that combines the flexibility and personalization of uniquely crafted products with the low unit costs associated with mass production. Different names for mass customization include specially made or worked to-arrange.

Understanding Mass Customization

Mass customization allows a customer to design certain [made-to-order](/specially make) highlights of a product while as yet keeping costs nearer to that of mass-delivered products. Now and again, the parts of the product are secluded. This flexibility allows the client to blend and-match options to make a semi-custom final product.

Mass customization might apply to many fields, yet many associate it to the retail industry. Software makers might utilize this method to include software-based product setups that enable end-clients to add or change specific elements of a core product. Even the financial services industry embraces mass customization through the growth of independent, expense just advisory firms.

The Growth of Mass Customization

2. Joseph Pine II took a gander at the growth of the American economy due to mass production. In his book, Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition (Harvard Business Review Press, 1992), he portrays four primary types of mass customization which took the concept of mass production to another level:

• Collaborative customization: companies work in partnership with clients to offer products or services uniquely fit to every client
• Adaptive customization: companies produce normalized products which the end-client might redo
• Transparent customization: companies give unique products to individual clients without obviously stating the products are redone
• Corrective customization: companies produce normalized products yet market them in various approaches to different customers

Pine zeroed in on the concept of creating a small number of interchangeable pieces. The individual parts might be combined in different ways producing a cost-effective production model yet allows consumers to pick how the pieces go together.

Instances of Mass Customization

Expense just, independent financial advisors allow their clients to redo their portfolio holdings to match their unique circumstances. The consumer might pick products that match their investment risk tolerance, time horizon, investment style, and future objectives.

Certain furniture companies offer mass customization by providing different options for different parts or highlights. This flexibility might include various textures, furniture legs, or pieces that combine in various arrangements. Likewise, particular home builders utilize mass-customization models by allowing customers to make changes to the base home package.

Benefits of Mass Customization

Mass customization enables manufacturers to defer the step of product differentiation until the final phase of manufacturing. Instead of the manufacturer deciding on the elements that make the product unique, mass customization allows the consumer to pursue these choices. For certain consumers, the ability to modify a product is sufficient to influence their buying decision for one company over another.

Mass customization can then turn out to be part of a lucrative marketing strategy for a company. Companies that offer customization can give themselves a competitive advantage over their opponents. They can promote their ability to create a semi-custom product at a reasonable price to consumers who are looking for an upgrade over a generic product. However long the company can deliver a product that doesn't compromise on quality, they have an opportunity to increase sales, profits, and brand loyalty for their exceptional products.

Mass customization can likewise assist a company with the costs associated with excess inventory. Implementing a just-in-time (JIT) approach to manufacturing can help companies in minimizing inventory and increasing effectiveness. Companies that adopt a JIT strategy to mass customization will require reliable providers and an inventory recharging system that tells them precisely when new materials should be requested.

Features

• The four primary types of mass customization are collaborative customization, adaptive customization, transparent customization, and corrective customization.
• Innovative manufacturing techniques assist companies with producing interchangeable parts that can be combined in various ways of building a financially savvy product that fulfills a specific customer's necessities.
• Mass customization is an interaction that allows a customer to customize certain elements of a product while as yet keeping costs at or close to mass production prices.
• Different companies utilize mass customization techniques, including retail companies, software makers, financial services companies, and secluded home builders.
• Companies that offer mass customization can give themselves a competitive advantage over different companies that main offer generic products.