What is Mass Customization?

Mass customization is an important business concept, which numerous companies are adopting these days. But what is mass customization exactly?

Mass customization combines the personalization and flexibility of custom-made business manufacturing and takes it to another level of mass production, which offers a lower unit cost. Therefore, different mass consumer groups are targeted in mass customization rather than targeting a single client.

This concept is utilized in numerous business types for instance in software that allow users to change or add certain functionalities according to their requirement.

Profitable mass customization of products and services, whether they are ones that are unique for each customer or ones that consumers can configure extensively to their needs, requires success in two broad areas.

The first is identifying opportunities for customization that create value for the customer and are supported by smooth, swift, and inexpensive transactions for both consumers and producers. The second is achieving a manageable cost structure and cost level for the producer even as manufac­turing complexity increases.

How is Mass Customization related to IoT?

On the horizon, manufacturing, supply­chain, and logistics functions will benefit from the broad pene­tration of digital sensors and smart tags that will offer greater potential for visibility, flexibility, and control of product flows, as well as for automation of tasks that enhance product value.

This is the trend towards the Internet of Things, which blends sensors, standards­based networks, and smart analytics to enable new information architectures for optimizing production.

Imagine, for example, products that adapt to their users’ habits and usage, or the use of predictive analytics to ensure parts or modules are automatically replenished when they are approaching end of life or failure.