TUM Research Center on Mass Customization & Customer Integration  

 

 

Mass Customization News
A Newsletter on Mass Customization, Personalization and Customer Integration

edited by Frank T. Piller, TUM

   

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Vol. 7, No. 2 (July 2004)
 
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What do you find in this issue:

 

 

Editorial: Mass Customization: talking about or doing it?


Sorry for the delay until this new issue of the newsletter could be published, but the last weeks were very busy ones. I attended numerous meetings, conferences, and workshops on mass customization, open innovation, and customer integration all over the world. You find several call for papers, call for participations, or reports on past event in this issue. In addition, a number of special issues of journals, and even an own International Journal on Mass Customization (see below), are coming up !

From my perspective, 2004 will become the most active year of talking and writing about mass customization. But what about doing it? Luckily, there are also a number of successful new ventures, and old ones are tuning up and improving their MC processes.

Thus, happy research, but first of all, much success in doing mass customization, Frank Piller


Mark your calendar already today !

The 2005 World Congress on Mass Customization and Personalization will take place from 18-20 Sept. 2005 in Hong Kong, followed by a mass-customization study tour to Hangzhou, China, on "MCP in China" (22-23 Sept. 2005)

More information already at www.mcpc2005.com !

 

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Deutsche Mass-Customization-Community

(English readers: continue below, please)

Liebe deutsche Mass-Customization-Community, drei spezielle Hinweise für Sie:


(1) Industrie-Arbeitskreis zu den Erfolgsfaktoren von "Mass Customization":

Unser Lehrstuhl richtet an der TU München einen Industriearbeitskreis ein, um mit einer Gruppen von 10 bis 15 Unternehmen über eine Periode von 12 bis 18 Monaten gemeinsam Erfolgsfaktoren für Mass Customization zu erarbeiten und gegenseitig zu evaluieren. Den teilnehmenden Unternehmen bietet dieses Forschungsprojekt die einmalige Möglichkeit zum intensiven Austausch und zur Auseinandersetzung mit der Materie.

Am 15. Juli 2004 findet von 9:30 h bis ca. 14 h in München ein kostenloser Workshop zur Konzeption des Arbeitskreises statt, der seine Arbeit im September 2004 aufnimmt (Sie können auch noch am Arbeitskreis teilnehmen, wenn Sie diesen Termin verpaßt haben).

Mehr Informationen (PDF): http://www.mass-customization.de/mcak.pdf

Anmeldung und weitere Informationen auch direkt bei Klaus Moser (k.moser@wi.tum.de, Tel. 089-289-24821 oder 0170-334-4387).


(2) Die sechste Deutsche Mass-Customization-Tagung

Die 6. Mass Customization Tagung 2004

Methoden, Wissen, Anwendungen für die kundenindividuelle Massenproduktion

11. & 12. Okt. 2004, Frankfurt/M. in der Deutschen Bibliothek

Alle Informationen hier !

Bereits zum sechsten Mal findet am 11. und 12. Oktober 2004 in der Deutschen Bibliothek in Frankfurt/Main die deutsche Mass-Customization-Tagung statt. Veranstalter sind wieder das Fraunhofer IFF und die TU München. Halten Sie sich diesen Termin frei, es wird das Networking- und Informationsevent des Jahres im Bereich Mass Customization, kundenindividuelle Produktion und Kundenintegration.

Die Tagung beginnt am 11. Oktober gegen 14 h mit einem speziellen Teil zu Logistik- und Supply-Chain-Management-Aspekten von Mass Customization. Anhand von zwei realen Unternehmensbeispielen wird die gesamte Prozesskette zwischen Konfiguration und Vertriebsprozess im Laden bis zur Koordination der Zulieferer abgebildet.

Am 12. Oktober erwartet Sie der bekannte Ablauf aus mehreren Fachvorträgen von Unternehmern, die Mass Customization umsetzen und erfolgreich einsetzen (ca. 9 bis 17 Uhr). Der Tag bietet auch viel Raum zur Diskussion und gegenseitigen Austausch.

 


(3) Impulse-Dossier zu Mass Customization

Die Zeitung Impulse hat online ein großes Mass-Customization-Special veröffentlicht: http://www.impulse.de/aca/ev/257437.html. Lesenswert !

 

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Software Mass Customization

This guest article by Jorn Bettin, Managing Director of SoftMetaWare, a consultancy that provides strategic technology management advice, introduces the mass customization concept as it applies to the development of mass-customized software products.

In the software engineering community the techniques and technologies necessary for mass customization of software are part of the discipline of software product line engineering. Mass customization of software is somewhat different from mass customization in other industries, where the transition is from mass production to mass customization.

In the software industry the transition to mass customization is about providing an economically superior alternative to both of:

  • Manual development of off-the-shelf software products, which may or may not be configurable/customizable, and where the total cost of ownership is driven upwards not only by high costs for the base product, but also by very high costs for configuration and implementation.

  • Manual development of expensive one-of-a-kind custom applications.

 

In other words the paradigm shift is from "massive manual customization and configuration" to "massive automated customization and configuration". The main objective is to raise the level of abstraction of software product specifications to a level that relates to the problem space rather than the solution space (software technologies).

The first step towards mass customization of a software product is the derivation of design templates for software products of a certain type from one or more prototype product instances. The design templates are then used in conjunction with user supplied specifications for a specific product to automatically generate a corresponding product instance.

In the world of software it is very easy to expose thousands of configuration options and switches to users, and the varying needs of customers have led vendors to continuously increase the degree of configurability of their products. Enterprise resource planning systems provide a prime example of extremely complex configurability, and in fact this complexity has become a major cost issue for those wanting to implement such systems.

Software product line engineering tackles this problem head-on by ensuring configuration knowledge is presented to the user in an intuitive format, and by ensuring the user can't create an "illegal" configuration. For example, when configuring a product, the user should be provided with a single selection of the country that the software is used in, rather than separately needing to specify country-specific address formatting rules, date formats, legislation options for accounting, etc. In software product line engineering a process of domain analysis is used to uncover the deep domain knowledge required to build domain-specific [configuration/specification] languages that prevent users from creating "illegal" configurations. In many cases software product instances can be drastically simplified by applying some product specifications at "product generation time", i.e. before the software is compiled and deployed in a specific environment. This approach minimizes the post-installation configuration effort, and often it also reduces the overall size of the software, which is less of an issue for enterprise systems, but can be an important factor in the development of embedded software.

So far the theory. In practice, time-to-market requirements usually don't allow the significant ramp-up period postulated by most software product line engineering methodologies. At OOPSLA'03 (http://www.oopsla.org), a group of researchers and practitioners met in a birds of a feather session to share their experiences. The objective was to define the foundation of a new paradigm for software development that builds on software product line engineering principles, but which also is compatible with the principles of the Agile Manifesto (http://www.agilemanifesto.org). The result is a paradigm called Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD).

The relationship between MDSD and software product line engineering can be compared to the relationship between Component Based Development and Object Technology: One builds on the other, and the terminology of MDSD can be seen as an extension of the terminology for software product line engineering. The concept of core assets from software product lines carries through into MDSD and is directly reflected in "Industrialized Software Asset Development", the subtitle of MDSD.


What sets MDSD apart from classical software product line engineering is the emphasis on a highly agile software development process. One of the highest priorities in MDSD is to produce working software that can be validated by end users and stakeholders as early as possible. This is consistent with the major shift towards agile software development methodologies in the industry. MDSD provides the scalability that is not inherent in popular agile methodologies such as Extreme Programming.

Further Reading


Model-Driven Software Development, http://www.mdsd.info

Jorn Bettin, 2004, Model-Driven Software Development: An emerging paradigm for industrialized software asset development, http://www.softmetaware.com/mdsd-and-isad.pdf

Jorn Bettin, 2004, Model-Driven Software Development Teams: Building a software supply chain for distributed global teams, http://www.softmetaware.com/distributedsoftware-product-development.pdf

Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, Software Product Line Practice, http://www.sei.cmu.edu/plp/plp_init.html

Contact the author at Jorn Bettin, jorn.bettin@softmetaware.com, www.softmetaware.com, Tel +64 9 372 3073

 

Partner Search: The Australian & New Zealand Institute on Mass Customization and Personalization

Jorn Bettin (jorn.bettin@softmetaware.com, Tel +64 9 372 3073) is looking for interested parties from Australia & New Zealand to found a local Institute on Mass Customization and Personalization down under. He encourages interested parties to contact him via email. He would be happy to kick off the activities in terms of incorporating a Not For Profit Organization for this purpose.

 

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Left foot company the largest mass customization company for men's shoes

In June, I spend a couple of days in Finland for the opening of the Finish Institute of Mass Customization & Personalization. During its inauguration ceremony, I had the chance to meet with the management team of Left Foot, the largest company providing mass customized men's shoes (http://www.leftfootcompany.com). CEO Risto Pentikäinen convinced my to give the system a try, and so I stopped in Left's Helsinki store on my way back to the airport to get a pair of customized shoes.

The store, next to the railway station in a small shopping centre, comes with a special appeal that indicates immediately that this is not you regular shoe store. On one side, a number of sample shoes are lined up, otherwise, the store is rather empty, giving it the touch of a fashionable shoe boutique. However, the main wall in the store is covered with a huge CAD-model of a shoe and the bold words "custom made shoes. perfect fit" so that shoppers know immediately what to expect. Behind a wall, the 3D foot scanner is installed.

Here, my buying experience started. My feet were 3D-scanned using a regular scanning device. During the process, the sales clerk explained me very nicely the screens and what my measurements doe mean.

Secondly, it was design time. I chose from one of the roughly 15 different basic designs, ranging from rather sportive models to more classic ones. All shoes come in a variety of leather qualities and colors, and you can also select the outsole (full leather, full rubber, mix etc.). After selecting my model and design, I got two matching pairs of basic sample shoes. The company seems to work with the typical match-to-order system. This means that shoes are not produced based on customized lasts, but that the measurements of a customer are matched to an existing last. The same approach is followed, e.g., by Adidas or Selve. The system provided the right sample shoes from the beginning, so there was no further need for additional try-ons.

After I provided my customer data and delivery address, I paid (the shoes are priced in-between 180 and 220 Euro), got a print of my shoes and my customer ID, and departed to the airport. The whole selling process lasted about 20 minutes.

During the sales process, customers do not interact with a computer system, but only with the sales clerk. In my opinion, especially given the tech-savvy target group of Left, the buying experience could be enhanced if customers would get the opportunity to build and see their shoes in exactly their specifications on the configuration systems. In the moment, the configurator is just used as a back-office tool for order taking and submission.


The left foot concept is owned by Pomarfin Oy, the leading shoe manufacturer in Finland. The company was established in 1960 and has currently two factories - one in Finland and one in Estonia. Pomarfin's standard collection provides men, women and children with an extensive selection of comfortable high quality casual shoes, walking shoes, and boots.

In 1998, Pomarfin started to develop a unique mass customization solution to satisfy the increasing demand of men's individual high quality business shoes. Three years later, in 2001, the brand name of "left" and the "left foot company" business model were introduced to the markets. Currently, stores can be found in Helsinki, Copenhagen, Birmingham and Moscow. A new shop in Osaka, Japan, was opened on July 9, 2004, and plans are made together with the local partner to open also in Tokyo as soon as suitable location becomes available.

Later in the year, several stores are to be opened in Germany. Expansion in the UK is on the agenda, and Italy is next on the list, as sales manager Niina Gamzu told me. North America is seen as an interesting option, and expanding there is only a matter of finding the right kind of partners, as Left prefers to operate on a franchising or licensing basis.

Already, today, some of the shops are run by an independent partner. As the product concepts are rather simple, this may work, and according to company information, Left has also enough capacity due to its ownership of the manufacturing. This helps to overcome the manufacturing problems other mass customizers in this industry face. CEO Risto Pentikäinen also wants to widen the product range and is now looking for suitable licensing partners to use the technology to manufacture for example ladies shoes and golf shoes.

And my shoes? After 10 days only, the custom-made shoes arrived in my office. The fit was perfect from the beginning, the color and model were as expected, and the quality of work is really good. But most important: While the left shoe is labeled "left" with the company brand, the right shoe has my name and customer ID printed on the insole an important psychological detail to show what is special with this pair of shoes. Overall, my personal buying experience was very pleasurable, and I will consider to re-order.

Left Foot has integrated its online shop seamlessly in its selling system. After the customer's feet have once been measured, he can re-order shoes very easily. According to a survey conducted by the company, a vast majority of the customer target group, i.e. 35-55 years old men with high education, good income, and fashion consciousness, prefer to do other things than shopping for shoes. So this approach may suit them perfectly by giving them more leisure time.

I will keep you updated when I order my second pair of shoes, now over the internet. If you like more information, contact also Niina Gamzu (tel. +358-9-877 51 699, niina.gamzu@leftfootcompany.com).


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Open Innovation at Adidas: From Mass Customization at miAdidas to user innovation in a virtual customer lab

I have written before in this newsletter and several articles on the transition of mass customization systems into systems for open innovation, i.e. the integration of customers not only in the configuration of customized products within an existing solution space, but also the integration of customers and users in the creation of a new solution space.

This idea builds on recent research indicates that users play an important role in the development of product innovations. Customers can become more than rather passive sources of information, but active participants in the process of value creation and innovation. Customers do not speak only when they are asked to speak by a firm during market research activities, but may also become active by their own, either out of own motivation or reacting on an incentive of a manufacturer to do so.

This idea relates not only towards need related information which customers bring actively into the innovation process, but also in regard to solution innovation. Company internal ("closed") innovation processes are restricted to the creative input and solution knowledge of a rather small group of engineers, product managers, and other members of the product-development-team. By "opening" the innovation process to the input of a large number of users and (potential) customers, the ideas, input, and solution knowledge of a by far higher number of individuals and organizations can be incorporated opening an avenue to creativity that has not been utilized before. In a forthcoming book, von Hippel (2005) calls this development the "democratization of innovation", referring to taking the creative process of innovation out of the hand of a few and giving it into the hands of many. The result shall be a positive welfare effect for the whole industry or even society.

In a joint project with Sport good manufacturer Adidas-Salomon AG, our department at the TUM Business School has introduced at the end of June 2004 a "virtual innovation lab" where customers can provide input on existing products, develop innovative service ideas (like sport event, training plans, and other customer relationship activities) for the company, and vote on new product designs or product options. This internet based initiative means a strong break with the dominance of internal designers and product developers within Adidas, which were often seen as the core of the company and which were buffered from end-consumers by several levels of subsidiaries and retailers.

Adidas was looking for new ways to excite its customers and to ensure future revenues. Customers were getting more and more demanding for exceptional design and product performance according to their individual requirements. Based on joint research with the research team, customer integration was evaluated and piloted as a measure to cope with this challenges. In a first stage, the so called "mi adidas" program was launched successfully and developed into a own business unit of Adidas. This is the well-known mass customization program of Adidas, which was the topic of many earlier articles and presentations. Here, consumers are able to co-design their product in a late design step. In a second stage, learning from this first attempt of customer integration should be brought into a larger context.

"Mi adidas" customers now get access to a "virtual customer lab" as part of a new innovation strategy directed to co-create value with large groups of individual customers. On a special web site, customers are included in all steps of the innovation process, from idea and concept generation, concept and beta testing, up to complaint management. For this tasks, a special innovation toolkit was developed:

The toolkit consists of five "campaigns" which are also partly used to evaluate and pilot the toolkit itself. These campaigns consist of two surveys asking users for direct feedback to the existing sales process and products; one "idea generation competition" where users shall come up in a very open solution space with own ideas (however, in a structured manner as shown below); one "concept proof" that allows user to evaluate both the ideas of other users and ideas which were generated in-house by the design team (both in regards to product and service innovation); and one tool for web-based conjoint analysis in order to get in-depth feedback on specific product features.

The idea generation and feedback process spans the total customer experience with the brand. Structured in 12 zones, the user can participate to generate and evaluate ideas in regard to, for example, the pre-sales phase, the sales process itself, the usage phase (including product innovation), but also in regard to additional services he or she would expect or wish to become offered by the brand Adidas.

An easy-to-use interface shall increase the flow experience of the user. The last product purchased by the individual customer is shown. By showing this model virtually and clickable, directed feedback to the particular shoes should be generated, which, on the other hand, can be directly classified in regard to the correct product component and specification. This is, given the high variety of short life cycle of product option at Adidas, a larger improvement to increase efficiency of evaluation of user feedback.

The toolkit was launched at the end of June 2004, and already one week later, users has filled its pages with a huge variety of ideas and feedback, indicating that providing such an outlet for customers may be a unique and until now underutilized source to get access to ideas and knowledge for innovation.

 

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Short News and Internet Links


(a) Factory121 is "best e-business site in Switzerland"

In my speeches and presentations, I am referring often to Factory121, a mass customizer of Swiss watches. This firm has one of the best online configuration systems and provides its customers not only with a unique product, but also with a unique co-creation experience.

Recently, the company was named "Master of Swiss Web 2004", and sales are going up. Congratulations!

More information: http://www.121time.com or http://www.factory121.com
Background information: http://www.mass-customization.de/news/news03_01.htm#4


(b) MC News Portal: "MadeForOne.com" online

A new website, MadeForOne.com, has been launched as an online news resource for all aspects of mass customization. The site contains news about new customized and personalized products. There is also a separate section with news about technologies that enable enterprises to apply mass customization to their business. Additional areas of the website contain articles on mass customization concepts and more in-depth features on related issues.

"MadeForOne.com will provide frequent updates about new mass customized products, and also keep mass customizers up-to-date with the latest trends in concepts and technology", says editor Donal Reddington. "If your enterprise uses mass customization, MadeForOne.com wants to hear about it." MadeForOne.com is currently self-financed, but it is planned to offer paid advertising when the initial readership targets are achieved.

The full website address is http://www.madeforone.com


(c) Wildemasche with more products

Wildemasche has extended its offerings towards customizable pullovers (http://www.wildemasche.com). I have reported about this vendor already some issues before. Wildemasche is a German textbook example of co-design. The company offers manufacturing capabilities to consumers which can design their own knitting products. The company has connected its knitting robot to the internet. Consumers use a configuration tool to create a kind of a CAD program that is send on the machine. In manufacturing, the digital control and one-process-step-only approach make the production of one individual piece as expensive as the production of 1000 equal pieces.

Wildemasche.de started with the offering of customized scarves, now they have added pullovers and vests. Nice idea not only for yourself if you want to express your uniqueness by a specific pattern, but also a good idea for a present.


(d) Consumer activities towards personalization

In some cases, consumers are taking over customization by themselves. Here are two fun examples of user and fans of a product where the users build a configurator to play around with the product and allow personalization:

The Lego Mini Mizer: Picture yourself in Plastic (http://www.reasonablyclever.com/mini/index.html): You know the small LEGO figures which come along with the Lego sets? Here you customize them --- would be a nice addition to the customization offerings of Lego company.

Barbie MyDesign (http://barbie.everythinggirl.com/Activities/Fashion_Fun/MyDesign/look.asp) : Mattel used to offer its Barbie dolls customizable on the internet. The firm stopped this offering due to supply chain and manufacturing problems, but the Girl site "everythinggirl.com" took over the old configurator and allows now kids to personalize their Barbie doll online.


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The International Journal of Mass Customization

Finally: Mass Customization gets its own journal. The International Journal of Mass Customization provides an international forum for developing, promoting, disseminating and coordinating the progress in mass customization related methodologies, technologies, and practices among international professional communities. The focus deliberately embraces both industrial & business practices and academic research activities.

We have had planned such a journal as a future activity of the MCP Institute. However, briefly after the Munich conference, George Huang from the University of Hong Kong approached us with a final concept for a MC journal, with most of the planning work done. So we gratefully accepted George's offer for participation and we are proud and glad to be able to offer you an unique outlet for your mass customization research from this year.

The International Journal of Mass Customization is a double-blind refereed quarterly journal that publishes original research and application papers, review papers, research and technical notes, case studies, empirical field studies, tutorials, conference reports, management reports, book reviews, commentaries, and news in all areas of mass customization.

Send us your research now, and become part of the inaugurating issues which will get a large audience around the world !

The Journal invites contributions addressing theories, methods, tools, models, practices, and enabling technologies related to all aspects of mass customization, including business strategies, organizational structures, management and product information management, market development, strategic product planning, product design, product development and realization, configuration toolkits, customer co-design and customer interaction, process planning, production planning and scheduling, manufacturing system design and analysis, assembly lines, quality control and planning, logistics and supply chain management, relationship marketing, technical support and customer services, and sustainability, product recycling and disposal.

We are not only interested in manufactured products that are mass customizable, but also software, service products and experience offerings. The coverage of the Journal includes, but not limited to, the following subject areas and topics:

  • Fundamental issues of mass customization (variety, modularity, commonality, adaptability, flexibility, reusability, customizability, value creation and business models, etc.);
  • Customer / requirement engineering, Kansei engineering;
  • Market segmentation, product proliferation, product definition, product line planning, product portfolios;
  • Product architecture, product platform, product family architecture, modular and integral product architecture, platform development and customization, variant handling, design modeling and methodology;
  • Configuration systems, configuration rules and algorithms, visualization
  • Customer interaction, customer configuration behavior, customer choice, consumer risk and benefits, willingness to pay;
  • Marketing for mass customization, communication policies, branding, and relationship marketing;
  • Agile, flexible and reconfigurable processes, systems and supply chains, process and assembly planning, production management;
  • Logistics engineering and supply chain management, early supplier and customer involvement;
  • Re-usability, environmental sustainability and ecological impacts of mass customization;
  • Economic measures and performance management in mass customization including the cost of variety, time to market, etc.;
  • Computational intelligence in mass customization (Intelligent modeling of products, product platforms, product variants, product families, product portfolios, etc.);
  • Enabling technologies, ecommerce/e-business technologies, web and Internet applications;
  • Knowledge management, enterprise modeling for mass customization.

 

  • Authors are asked and encouraged to use the online submission facilities at http://www.digiprise.org/jmc as far as possible. Manuscripts should be prepared in MS Word or PDF format for online upload.

Each submitted paper is first reviewed by an editor and, if it is judged suitable for this publication, it is then sent to 2-3 referees for double blind peer review. Based on their recommendations, the coordinating editor decides whether the paper should be accepted as it is, revised or rejected.

http://www.digiprise.org/jmc
https://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=119

ISSN 1742 - 4208 [4 issues per year]

For more information, contact me or the managing editor, Prof. Georg Huang (gqhuang@hkucc.hku.hk)

 

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Conference reports


(I) International PETO Conference on Economic, Technical and Organisational Aspects of Product Configuration

At the end of June, I participated at a very interesting event in Copenhagen: The idea of this conference was to integrate the view on product configuration systems from three perspectives: While the technical aspects of product configuration systems are being extensively researched, the economic and organisational understanding is lagging behind. The motivation of this event was to combine the three perspectives.

However, also on this conference, the technology part dominated. There were a number of good presentation on the development and design of product configuration systems. However, how customers interact with these systems, was rather less reported. There is still much research needed.

Two case studies presented at the conference, however, provided additional insight. The first case was American Power Conversion (APC), a manufacturer of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and surge protection products. The company used a rather sophisticated configuration system to enter into a totally new market, using the (online) configuration system also to educate their customers and provide additional planning services. Here, the configurator became the core of the firm's business model.

Gea Niro, a full-service company offering engineering, systems, and solutions for powder and liquid processing i.e. very complex, complication solutaions for specialized markets, however introduced a configuration system, first of all, to demonstrate the firm's capabilities and competences to its customers. Its products are much to complex and specific as that they could be sold solely on the internet. The configuration tool, however, is more than an add-on or cosmetic gimmick, but becomes the main enabler of the company to demonstrate its knowledge and skills towards its (potential) customers.

This would be a great field for further research to evaluate different business models and business strategies which provide the strategic background for the implementation of configuration systems in different company settings.

In another presentation, Dr. Philipp Ackermann (ackermann@perspectix.com) listed the following trends in product configuration, based on the trend to see configurators as systems to execute the whole knowledge around a product-service bundle, instead of using configurators to present just selections of options:

From Production Planning to Sales & Service Support
1. Multi-Purpose Configuration Logic
2. Multi-View Challenge through the whole Product Lifecycle
3. Configuration of Product-Service-Mix: Physical Parts/Modules plus Service: Transportation, Installation, Testing, Maintenance, Financing

From Process Optimization to Product Knowledge Management
1. Explicit Systematics of Product Architecture
2. Support of Interplay between Sales, Engineering, Design, Suppliers, Service, …

From Back-end to Front-end Applications
1. Point-of-Sale Configurators (Consultive Configuration)
2. Mobile Applications (Field Sales, Field Service)
3. Self-Service-Tools (Web Configurators, Internet Collaboration)

From Text Dialogs to Multi-medial Product Representations
1. Geometric Dependencies (Component Composition, Collisions, Layout)
2. Graphical 2D & 3D Visualization of Modular Building System
3. Highly interactive User Interfaces (Rich Clients)


More information on the conference and download of many presentations at: http://www.productmodels.org


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(II) Finnish Institute of Mass Customization and Personalization (FIMCP) - Fostering Mass Customization Research in Finnish Settings

Inspired by the second World Congress on Mass Customization and Personalization (MCPC 2003) in Munich and the foundation of International Institute of Mass Customization and Personalization (IIMCP), a Finnish Institute of Mass Customization and Personalization (FIMCP, www.fimcp.fi) was founded in November 2003. Working as a national member of IIMCP, the FIMCP's objective is

'to foster research and interaction on mass customization and personalization. Bringing together researchers, practitioners and financial supporters to jointly develop Mass Customization blueprint in Finnish environment.'

As a first major effort, Mass Customization and Personalization Forum 2004 (MCPF, www.fimcp.fi/forum) was organized in June 13 as a side event of ECIS, the 12th European Conference on Information Systems, in Turku, Finland. Proceedings of MCPF2004 will be published in August-September 2004, communicating research results also for wider audience. In the future, FIMCP will continue active participation in national and international collaboration and promotion of research and practice on MCP.

For more information look at www.fimcp.fi.


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(III) The International Conference on Mass Customization and Personalization in Central Europe

The University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow (Poland) hosted a mass customization event on April 20-21, 2004 in Poland, to bring the mass customization concept closer to entrepreneurs and scientists from Central Europe. During this event, also a national branch of the IIMCP was inaugurated.

In a number of papers and presentations, the participants discussed especially the possibilities of mass customization in countries where the market potential seems not to be as obvious as in other western markets today. Today, many West European companies use East European countries mainly as a possibility to produce labor-incentive customized goods like apparel or shoes at lower costs. The products, however, are delivered solely to the western markets.

Before this setting, and given the fast growth rates and increases wealth on the eastern countries, the discussion on mass customization in Central Europe is a very interesting and challenging topic.

More information: http://www.mass-customization.pl


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Call for Papers

A Special Issue of International Journal Of Flexible Manufacturing Systems on Mass Customization

 

There is a near consensus among corporate strategists that flexibility and delivery will continue to be the two most salient priorities for business competition in the 21st century. Flexibility as a competitive priority refers to the range of capabilities or functionalities present in a product. Delivery refers to the speed with which a business responds to new ideas in the market place. A serious issue in competing on these priorities is the associated price tag. Customers are normally willing to pay a reasonable price premium for higher levels of customization and accelerated delivery but not an exorbitant price.

Mass customization offers a solution to this perennial problem - it helps produce a customized product or service at a mass-production price tag. The cost savings of mass customization are derived from the design of the links and tactics built into the value chain that focuses on economies of customer integration. Such tactics include designing modularity into the product or service, postponement of final operations of the custom-configured product until the demand is known, quick web-based access to the knowledge base of the customer needs and preferences, and opportunities for preferred segmentation of the market. Obviously, mass customization begins at the product design stage and ends at the distribution point when the custom-configured product is bought by the customer, i.e., almost the entire value chain.

The mechanism of mass customization to deliver a customized product at mass-volume price is both simple and elegant. While the final product delivered to the customer is configured to respond to his/her customized needs, the modules used to build the product are required in mass volume as each module constitutes a part of a large number of configurations. Thus, at the modular level, there are economies of scale derived from mass production. Furthermore, the delay in the final configuration of the product until the demand is known brings about significant savings in inventory related costs.

Because of this extraordinary ability of mass customization to allow businesses to respond to two inherently contradictory competitive priorities - low-price and high-customization - it has become a strategic tool of choice for many world class companies. Indeed, it is being hailed as the new strategic frontier of the business competition.

We would like to invite high quality manuscripts involving modeling, heuristics and algorithms, applications and case studies, surveys with analysis, frameworks and taxonomies, think pieces, and/or well-developed concepts and theories related to Mass Customization for possible publication in the special issue of International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems. Manuscripts exploring the impact of the cultural, strategic, human, technology and other aspects of business systems to determine whether they accelerate or inhibit adoption, modification, and diffusion of mass customization are also welcome.

The manuscripts should be submitted to any of the following editors on or before January 15, 2005. The manuscripts should be written in double-spaced Word or pdf files. Formatting of references should be consistent with that of the IJFMS.

Contact:
Ashok Kumar, Department of Management, Gran Valley State University, USA; kumara@gvsu.edu


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Special Issue of IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management on Mass Customization Manufacturing Systems

Customization is fundamentally not a new feature in industrial markets. However, mass customization, as an emerging business strategy, aims at associating both the advantages resulting from the satisfaction of individual customers' needs and the benefits of mass production efficiency. Mass customization has been made possible owing to the advancements achieved in the fields of manufacturing systems and modular product architectures.

One of the main challenges that mass customization has to face, concerns the design of manufacturing systems that are capable of producing customized goods for high volume markets with respect to cost efficiencies, as well as quality and time considerations.

Mass customization induces a considerable proliferation of product variety. Moreover, customers are more demanding and their requirements regarding tailor-made solutions are changing rapidly. This significantly influences manufacturing and involves high operations' complexity. Thus, the development of a mass customization manufacturing system is much more challenging than a mere optimization of an existing manufacturing system. It is not satisfactory to simply adjust a mass production manufacturing system to lower volume and higher variety. Instead, major changes are necessary, eventually leading to a radical reconfiguration and redesign process within manufacturing.

Furthermore, a main concern has to be assigned in order to learn of how to optimally plan and control the production processes in a variant-rich environment. In addition, product life cycles are becoming increasingly shorter. That is why the reconfigurability of a manufacturing system that means stepwise expandability and the possibility to adapt to different product variants, as well as dynamic plant layouts gains more in importance. However, the performance of manufacturing systems for mass customization depends not only on the configuration of the manufacturing system itself, but also on manufacturing related tasks, such as product family design, supply chain management, information system integration, etc. These have to be also addressed in order to fulfill all of the requirements of efficient and effective mass customization manufacturing systems.

A number of failed projects of providing customized products have initiated a discussion about the practicability and suitability of existing approaches and theories dealing with mass customization manufacturing systems. This special issue of IEEE-TEM is intended to discuss the state of the art, as well as actual research results in mass customization manufacturing systems. Practitioners and academic researchers are invited to submit papers presenting their findings and results. Furthermore,
due to the complex and interdisciplinary disposition of the topics, we expect contributions from management, economics, industrial engineering and information technology.

For Topics of interests, have a look at the web site:
http://www.manufacturing.de/calls/ieee-tem.htm

Papers submitted to this special issue will be reviewed in accordance with the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management editorial policy
(http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~ieeetem/guidelines.html).

Papers must be submitted via the IEEE electronic submission website
(http://tem-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com/).

Authors should indicate in the cover letter that the paper is being submitted to the special issue on Mass Customization Manufacturing Systems. Abstracts to ensure appropriateness to the special issue may be submitted in advance of the deadline by email. Deadline for submission: October 31, 2004

Editors:

Dr. Thorsten Blecker, University of Klagenfurt, School of Business Administration, Department of Production/Operations Management, Business Logistics and Environmental Management, blecker@ieee.org

Prof. Dr. Gerhard Friedrich, University of Klagenfurt, School of Informatics, Department for Computer Science and Manufacturing, gerhard.friedrich@uni-klu.ac.at

 

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Reading Mass Customization: New Books

 

As already announced before, five new publictations from our TUM Research Center on Mass Customization & Customer Integration are available now:

(1) Mass Customization und Kundenintegration: Neue Wege zum innovativen Produkt, hrsg. von Frank Piller und Christof Stotko, Düsseldorf: Symposion 2003

Mass Customization and Customer Integration: Innovative Paths to Innovative Products, edited by Frank Piller and Christof Stotko

This is "yet another book" on mass customization (in German language), but it has three characteristic elements: First, I tried to base the text on my personal experiences of coaching managers on mass customization and customer integration to make it a "field book" on the topic. By looking on the myths of the concepts and the learning from failed pioneers, Christof Stotko, my co-editor, and I wanted to provide a text that is really on the core of the concept and the elements that a company needs to make mass customization happen.

Second, we were driven to explore what is coming next and how mass customization can be developed further. The result was the connection of mass customization and open innovation (as described above in this newsletter).

Third, and this makes this volume really special, the book is the first fully customizable German book. Readers can create their very own copy and become their own editor. The book content is structured in several modules: A main platform, consisting of seven main chapters written mainly by me and Christof Stotko, provides the core of the book. In addition, there are more than 30 optional modules written by experts and acting managers. These modules contain case studies from different industries, but also in-depth coverage of aspects like product design for MC, customized pricing, or configuration systems.

Deutsche Extra-Ausgabe des Newsletter zum neuen Buch: http://www.mass-customization.de/news/news03_01b.htm

"Mass Customization und Kundenintegration: Neue Wege zum innovativen Produkt", herausgegeben von Frank Piller und Christof Stotko, Düsseldorf: Symposion Verlag 2003, ISBN: 3-936608-05-9, Euro 89,00 (mit CD-Rom und Individualisierungsgutschein). Information und Konfiguration als Individualbuch: http://www.mass-customization.de/ibook.htm

The State of the Art of MC Research(2) Proceedings of the MCPC 2003, edited by F. Piller, R. Reichwald and M. Tseng, more than 1500+ pages on interactive CD-Rom (plus 300+ pages update on special web site).

The latest state of the art of mass customization and personalization research. Read what more than 200 authors in over 100 contributions have to say about the design, development, production, marketing, sales, and service of MCP offerings.

More info: http://www.mcpc2003.com/proc.htm

 

The State of the Art of MC Research (3) The Customer Centric Enterprise: Advances in Mass Customization and Personalization, edited by Mitchell M. Tseng and Frank T. Piller

Despite a few exceptions, literature about mass customization and personalization is dominated by an argumentation focusing on the benefits of these strategies, but not delivering concepts and implementation steps how to build a customer centric enterprise. The book provides insight into these particular aspects. Following an interdisciplinary approach, leading scientists and practitioners in the field share their concepts and strategies for building a customer centric enterprise from the perspective of design, production engineering, technology and innovation management, customer behavior, as well as marketing.

The Customer Centric Enterprise: Advances in Mass Customization and Personalization, edited by Mitchell M. Tseng and Frank T. Piller, New York / Berlin: Springer 2003. (XII, 535 p. 168 illus.), Approx. $ / € 99,95, ISBN 3-540-02492-1. Available NOW !

More information and a 30+ page information leaflet with abstracts of all chapters is available on http://www.mass-customization.de/cce or http://www.mass-customization.de/cce.pdf.

Das wissenschaftliche Buch zu MC -- 3. Auflage Juni 2003 (4) Mass Customization: Ein wettbewerbsstrategisches Konzept im Informationszeitalter, 3. überarbeite und erweiterte Auflage, von Frank Piller

Frank Piller's scientific book on mass customization building the foundation of this concept from the perspective of production and strategic management. The capabilities of new information and communication technologies break with traditional borders and help to overcome, or at least reduce, many contradictions and limits in management. Based on an analysis of 150 case examples, the book provides an structural model around the "information cycle of mass customization" and a process approach on the different phases of a mass customization concept.

Ausgehend von den Potentialen der neuen Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien und den wichtigsten strategischen Ansätzen wirtschaftlichen Handelns im Informationszeitalter analysiert das Buch die Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen von Mass Customization. Als zentraler Erfolgsfaktor gilt dabei die effiziente und zielgerichtete Abwicklung der Informationsflüsse zwischen Anbieter und Nachfrager. Auf Basis von 150 Fallstudien innovativer Pionierunternehmen werden die Bedingungen diskutiert, wie Mass Customization dauerhaft Wettbewerbsvorteile schaffen kann.

Frank T. Piller: Mass Customization: Ein wettbewerbsstrategisches Konzept im Informationszeitalter, 3. überarbeite und erweiterte Auflage, Gabler Verlag: Wiesbaden 2003, (XXII, 415 S.), ca. € 64,90.

Nähere Informationen oder downloaden Sie einen ausführlichen Auszug (mehr als 50 Seiten) aus dem Buch unter http://www.mass-customization.de/mc-gabler03.pdf.

(5) Kundenindividuelle Produktion: Mass Customization in der Investitionsgüterindustrie VDMA 2003, von Patrick Schwarzkopf, Ralph Seelmann-Eggebert, Christof M. Stotko und Klaus-Dieter Thoben

A brief German brochure reports on the basics of mass customization for business-to-business firms (the focus is on machinery).

In der Reihe Entscheidungshilfen des VDMA-Verlags ist der Leitfaden "Kundenindividuelle Produktion - Mass Customization in der Investitionsgüterindustrie" erschienen. Die "kundenindividuelle Massenfertigung" ist ein Ansatz, mit dem Hersteller von Investitionsgütern den klassischen Zielkonflikt zwischen preiswerten Standardlösungen und teuren "maßgeschneiderten" Produkten auflösen. Neben der Bereitstellung von Produktionstechnik für die kundenindividuelle Massenfertigung ("Enabler-Technologien") geht es darum, kundenspezifische Anforderungen kostengünstiger als bisher zu erfüllen. Neben einer Einführung in das Thema stellt der Leitfaden zahlreiche Best-Practice-Beispiele vor. Der Preis beträgt 16 Euro für VDMA-Mitglieder (20 Euro für Nichtmitglieder).

Kundenindividuelle Produktion: Mass Customization in der Investitionsgüterindustrie, VDMA Verlag 2003, 48 Seiten, € 20,-, Online-Bestellung beim VDMA: http://s28846117.einsundeinsshop.de

 

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Mass Customization News -- A Newsletter on Mass Customization, Personalization and Customer Integration, edited by Dr. Frank Piller, Technische Universität München (TUM), Leopoldstrasse 139, 80804 Munich, Germany, Tel. +49 / (0)89 / 289-24820, piller @ ws.tum.de.

Vol. 7, No.2 (July 2004) (English version, earlier editions are in German language only).

Printer friendly and easy-to-read version of this issue in Acrobat PDF File

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This Newsletter is published by the TUM Research Center on Mass Customization and Customer Integration at the TUM Business School.

Please contact us to learn about the possibility of speaking assignment, workshops, studies, and consulting activities.

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Copyright (c) 2004 by Frank Piller, TUM. All rights reserved.