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Mass Customisation is defined
as the mass production of individually customized products and
services. In its more sophisticated form this means meeting each
customer's individual wants and needs exactly, but at prices
comparable to those of standard mass produced goods.
The dominant system of production
for large volume manufacturers during the first half of the 20th
century was mass production - an approach based on producing
and selling standard mass produced items, exploiting economies
of scale to achieve prices that everybody could afford. The major
assumption being that markets were homogeneous - everybody had
basically the same wants and needs that could be satisfied by
a few standard products.
Over the past 40 years significant
changes have occurred in the business environment - increased
pace of technological change, more fashion consciousness, globalisation
of the economy, imbalances between supply and demand, fragmentation
of markets, to name but a few. These changes have made it impossible
for most manufacturing companies to adhere to strict mass production
principles, and many now seek to differentiate themselves from
competitors on the basis of customer choice and customisation
capabilities.
Faced with this breakdown in
the conditions that enabled mass production, a realisation is
growing among companies that a fundamental change is occurring
in the basis of competition. The technologies, organisational
structures, human resource practices and the values that were
appropriate to mass production have now become a competitive
liability. Mass Customisation demands radical internal changes.
The purpose of this web site
and other Cheshire Henbury publications is to explore the emerging
paradigm of Mass Customisation and the nature of the radical
internal changes that companies need to make in order to prosper
in this new era. The publications will focus on:
- Defining and understanding
the social and market factors driving the development of Mass
Customisation;
- Outlining the techniques that
are being developed to support Mass Customisation;
- Exploring the technological,
organizational, human resource and cultural implications of Mass
Customisation;
- Examining the real business
benefits that companies are achieving through Mass Customisation
and the problems that they have to deal with.
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