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Mass customization - what is
it and is it important? These were some of the questions explored
at a colloquium, organized by the IEE's
Next Generation Manufacturing Enterprise Working Party, held
at Savoy Place on September 10th. Presentations included two
case studies describing implementation of customised manufacturing
at Raleigh Bicycles and Charles Letts Diaries.
By accident, the timing of
the colloquium coincided with the launch in Britain of Levi Strauss'
"Personal Pair Service" - manufacture and delivery
of made-to-measure denims. Levi Strauss is regarded as a pioneer
in mass customisation, combining economies of scale of mass production
with the personal service of bespoke tailors.
Mass customisation is one of
those terms which invites individual interpretation. First coined
in the United States in the mid 1980s, the term can mean different
things to different people. Sometimes it seems to be used simply
to mean a lot of customisation. Other times it is specifically
applied to the mass production of individually customised products
- volume production with lot sizes of one.
Behind the buzzword, the growing
hype and the numerous interpretations, there is however a serious
issue. How can one actually achieve cost effective customisation?
The lessons emerging from the case studies presented at the colloquium
clearly point towards the possibility of using new technologies
and flexible organisations and people to control the costs traditionally
associated with proliferating variety.
But customising jeans, diaries
and bicycles is one thing, customising more complex products
such as automobiles is quite another story. State-of-the-art
in the auto industry would be better described as mass personalisation
through accessories and factory fitted options. Rover, for example,
operate a computerized system in their showrooms called DiSCUS
which allows customers to build up the precise product they require
from the Rover range. However, Rover still manufacture bottom
end vehicles in each model range to market forecast.
The main value of DiSCUS lies
not in configuration, but in showing customers what is available
and what the car of their choice looks like. A benefit from this
is that Rover dealers do not need to hold large stocks of vehicles
and then have to cajole customers into buying a particular vehicle
that does not really match what they want. So DiSCUS is really
about providing a better quality and more friendly customer service
based on trust.
Moving beyond personalisation,
one could envisage automobile firms undertaking styling and dimensional
changes to vehicles to satisfy individual customer requirements.
But an affordable capability to do this is still a long way off,
although major vehicle manufacturers are working on this problem.
What remains to be seen however, is the level of consumer demand
for such a degree of customisation.
Customisation, en mass or otherwise,
is increasingly what manufacturing companies need to deliver
if they want to stay in business. Contrary to popular belief
however, the main driver for customisation seem to be mainly
supply side rather than demand side driven. What we are seeing
is the emergence of what could be called a niche production economy.
A characteristics of the associated business environment is a
condition called market turbulence, which points to the need
for agility - and that's another widely (ab)used term subject
to different interpretations (The issue of agility is dealt with
elsewhere on this website - agility
home page)
Mass customisation and agility
are both issues that will be increasing addressed as people wake
up the fact that business conditions have changed so drastically
that tried and tested methods no longer seem adequate. This naturally
leads to the question of what the next generation of manufacturing
enterprises will look like. This is the remit of the working
party that organized the mass customisation colloquium - to look
beyond current best practice in manufacturing and to explore
the emerging frontier of solutions to tomorrow's needs and problems. |