In early classes of 486G, I came across the term “mass customization”. I thought it was an interesting topic, so as it was not covered in depth in class, I set out to research about it on my own. Luckily I find one article that explains about mass customization in great detail.
The key in mass custumization is its variability and availability. It is also this aspect that makes mass costumization seems better than traditional mass production. Mass customizers can quickly customize products (build-to-order) upon customers demand and it can also quickly resupply products. Overall the variability and avalabilty need to be backed up by speend, which reduces the waiting period of products (especially when the products are customized)
In additional to speed, two other aspects are also required to ensure a successful mass custumization model. Firstly, flow manufacturing is very important. Just as the article pointed out, no matter if the product is customized or standardized, “mass customizers depend on several elements of flow manufacturing to enable them to build products economically in any order quantity, even as low as one”. Secondly, a spontaneous su[ply chain is needed. This is because manufactuer need to ensure that all the materials for custumization is available at any point of production. Having a non-spontaneous supply chain may result in delay in production and even affect the availability of products.