Mass Customization & Open Innovation News

MCPC 2009: My Personal Conclusions and Learning from this Year's Conference

(updated on Oct. 17) After almost one week of discussions, lectures, keynotes and many personal interactions -- and four long postings about the conference --, what were my key insights from the MCPC 2009 (2009 Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization)?

(1) Don't mention the crisis: While still talking about the economic crises dominates the conversations of many business people, it was no topic at all during the conference. So is mass customization crisis resistant? Well, many of our participants told me that they saw it as unaffected or even an answer.

Take consumer goods. The more conventional retailers are coming under cost pressure, the more they are streamlining their assortments. The less likely it is that customers find exactly what they want -- the larger the appeal of customized offerings. This was a pattern reported frequently from participants from the apparel and clothing sectors. At the same time, mass customization is "affordable" luxury. When I am not sure about the future, I am postponing the purchase of my new car. But I still reward myself by paying a tad more for a pair of customized ski boots. This was a good sign – and a positive mood (To be honest, however, there also may have been a self selection effect: Branches of industry interested in mass customization but affected by the crisis did not show up – and so there was no one to complain).

(2) Configuration Technology: A new generation of customization logic is coming up: While Joe Pine, Lars Hvam, and myself still preach that modularization and product family structures are the key to efficient customization, Dr. Yusel from Certusoft Inc. and Konstantin Krahtov from the Open Experience GmbH both provided presentations that turned the common argumentation upside down:

I normally tell my students that for manufacturing companies mass customization means to move from ETO to MTO or ATO (engineer- => make- or assemble-to-order). But in these presentations, the idea was presented that instead of combining pre-defined modules, the configuration toolkit will engineer the components on the fly in real time. As Dr. Yusel said: "Conventional configurators replace what engineers do. Our system replaces how engineers think." He has implemented his configuration system within large US truck makers with amazing results -- and really opened my eyes to a new way of thinking of configuration. Similar Open Experience from Karlsruhe in Germany. Their vision is that in the end you just doodle what you like, and the system turns this into a component.

Perhaps the future of configuration is indeed beyond arranging pre-defined modules to a product, but developing components and production patterns in real time (you need, however, a very flexible manufacturing system for this).

(3) Customization & Personalization are becoming "the new imperative of business". In our MCPC community, we have to make the connection to industries like financial services, health, computer gaming, media, etc ... All these industries are very much driven by personalization but have not really been part of the mass customization debate (and community) yet.  This is one of my goals for the next 2011 conference: Broaden the conversation of mass customization from the domains where we are today into these new fields of applications.


(4) Customization is the true luxury – no matter the price. There is a long debate about the future of luxury goods. But a repeating theme during the conference was the notion that for many consumers, being able to customize a product is the true luxury, whether it is a chocolate bar for $4 or a custom trunk by Louis Vuitton for $25K.

Positioning mass customization in the "mass market" and regarding it as a "democratization" of manufacturing perhaps has misplaced the concept – and also has communicated it wrongly towards consumers. Even if mass customized goods still should be affordable and should not lift the offering into different market segments, its appeal for consumers still is the luxury and personal service connected with it (see the report about the MCPC 2009 Fashion Lab for more).

Mass customization means to "take away the need of products which are full of stuff and replace it with products full of meaning", as one of the participants of the discussion during the business seminar said. We have plenty of research on this meaning for consumers in mass customization offerings, but still have to find better ways to communicate and transport it to consumers.


Concluding, the MCPC 2009 again was a great experience. It really became a gathering of friends and colleagues, many of them joining the conferences since 2001 and becoming a great community of practice. Our community has started several companies, made important business connections, created many PhDs and master students, and really advanced the thinking in an important field!

What is next?

The next MCPC World Conference will be in October 2011, probably at a convenient East Coast location in the U.S. We will extend the name MCPC to "Mass Customization, Personalization & Co-Creation" to acknowledge the larger scope of the conference.

In 2010, a number of focused, smaller events will take place:

• We are planning again a German language MC event. My idea is to focus on the new wave of entrepreneurs that we find in Germany in the moment.
• I envision a similar event for the US, perhaps in connection with the next MIT Smart Customization Seminar, planned for late Spring 2010.
• Stefan from "Milk & Sugar" is planning a MC event in the Netherlands.
• Finland will continue to host an important MC meeting with the FIMCP 2010 in Tampere.

Context Information: More reports about the MCPC 2009 conference:

==> Twitter reports about the MCPC.

==> Great reports by Mass Sinclair in his blog no-retro.

==> Personal impressions of our keynote speaker Bruce Kasanoff.

==> Ran Machtinger, CEO of Optitex, about his presentation on Virtual Fashion.

==> Raul Lansik has a great new blog on customer co-creation in general, and a nice posting about the MCPC.

==> Teemu Arina, a speaker at the business seminar about real-time business, shares the ideas of his presentation.
==> Uche, Author of Luxury Online and panelist in the business seminar, will report about the conference at her new blog.
==> Mikkel Thomassen wrote a blog (in Danish) about the MCPC. And Robert Freund in German. And Chris Chatzopoulos has a report for everyone understanding Greek. Satu Miettinen wrote a nice report about the conference and service customization, in case you can read Finish.
==> Kate Herd has some pictures on Flickr.

(please let me know if you also have a blog post about the conference)

My previous reports about the MCPC 2009:

- Part 1: Day 1 of the Research Conference
- Part 2: Day 2 of the Research Conference
- Part 3: Business Seminar
- Part 4: MC Fashion Lab

MCPC 2009 Conference Report Day 4: Fashion Lab: Anna Ruohonen, Selve, Servive, Rivolta on why customization is the true luxury in fashion

The last day of the conference was dedicated to three labs, which provided an interactive platform for discussion around specialized fields. I joined the Fashion Lab.

We were a very nice group of people, ranging from luxury companies LV, Selve, or Paris-designer Anna Ruohonen to streetwear labels like Converse and Spreadshirt, from great students and professors from the Helsinki design and fashion scene, from specialist consultants like Sergio Dulio (footwear) to my academic colleagues from RWTH-TIM in Aachen.

The day started with a presentation by Sirkku Liukkonen, responsible for customization at the  Helsinki concept store of Anna Ruohonen. "From atelier work to mass customization", so the title of the journey Sirkku described.  Anna Ruohonen is a Paris-based fashion designer with two clothing labels carrying her name, both for men and women. Her style follows the tradition of Finnish design: the forms are architectural, the cuts are considered, and simplicity and sustainability are key concepts.

They started with customization for some retail clients and slowly moved into the consumer business after opening a mass customization concept store in Helsinki in April 2009. Products are produced together with the general items; all are produced on-demand in Paris. The popularity of the customization offering largely exceeded expectations. "Better fitting is the key word", Sirkku said. No wonder, as they offer the customization service at no additional fee. It is a "premium service for free".

An interesting debate started at this point: Conventionally, "sustainable fashion" is an oxymoron: Fashion is all about change and getting the latest stuff … But as Sirkku explained, sustainability is more than just using eco textiles: "If an item fits well and people really like it, people really will use it for a long time". And Sergio Dulio added: "Mass customization equals sustainability: the amount of products which are not sold corresponds to such a huge batch of energy without no use at all." An interesting debate that we will continue during the next conferences.

The presentation about Anna Ruohonen started a second stream of discussion (along the solution space dimension of our framework): How to balance between the design aesthetics of the brand and the vision of a star designer like Anna Ruohonen: Shall Anna allow the modifications of her dresses that they are suited for customers with body dimensions not seen in her patterns before? Where does the "dream" of a customer ends? What will this mean for a brand?

This is a question that also drives Claudia Kieserling, one of the longest members of our community. Claudia is founder and president of Selve, the first and leading customizer for ladies shoes in the world. "Luxury is a key characteristic of mass customization", she said. "No matter what price you ask, consumers see it as pure luxury." This is an interesting turning point in the discussion, as previously, we saw as one objective – or even as part of the definition – of mass customization that it should reach a large "mass".Claudia reported that her customers are coming for both fashion and fit (often starting for fit, and returning for fashion). Some of her best (and wealthy) customers have ordered more than 100 shoes --- making the shopping of a creation process of her own. For her, "time and experience are the new luxury" – an impression shared by Kamel from Louis Vuitton.  

A final example of experience was provided by Sergio Dulio. He has consulted in the past months extensively to an Italian entrepreneur who wants to revolutionize the way how custom-made shoes in the upper segment are sold and produced. A concept / testing store has just been open at the famous Via della Spiga (#17) in Milan.

Under the name of "Rivolta", customers there can experience one of the most advanced configurators in the world. You not just can design your shoes like on your iPhone on huge screens, but also fully try your custom shoes virtually on your own body in a virtual mirror. There also will be an iPhone Application to customize your shoes on the run! Shoes are expensive (Euro 1400 an up), but targeted to business people who have expensive custom shoes anyway, but want to purchase them with a new twist and different level of service and experience. Here, the act of purchasing the shoe becomes a luxury experience.

The Fashion Lab further had a number of interesting live demos. Thorsten Harzer and Moritz Wellige from my group at RWTH Aachen demonstrated a financial model to calculate the impact of mass customization in the clothing industry, developed as part of our Servive project. We could see a demo of a 3D knitting machine -- the complement to rapid manufacturing and laser sintering in the fashion industry ("data in, pullover out"). We got a demonstration of the Corpus.e Foot Scanner and its application at Pakerson, another upscale customizer of men's shoes with a successful store in St. Petersburg.

All in all, a great finale of a great conference!

MCPC 2009 Report Day 3: Business Seminar: Co-Creation, Louis Vuitton, Spreadshirt, and why self expression is the true luxury of our time

MCPC 2009, Helsinki, Day 3: Business Seminar.  Many people called this the most interesting day of the conference. I wouldn't make the judgment, as the MCPC Business Seminar is different in nature to the main conference, and serves a different purpose, but without any doubt: it was a remarkable day and perfect line-up of speakers.

One good thing was that I personally could relax a bit, as Kristian Möller, a marketing professor at the Helsinki School of Economics, was our host and chaired the seminar. The day started again with Joe Pine who this time focused on customer centricity, defined by him as "the one who pays you money ... placed at the center of everything you do." The talk was a good wrap-up of his previous thinking … and humorous and insightful as always (reminder: check out the personalization/customization strategy of Progressive).

The following panel on Creativity and Customer Value Co-creation started with Teemu Arina, a Finish thinker on Web 2.0. What I liked, was his presentation's title, "Interactive Value Creation" (the title of our 2006 book on customer co-creation). The presentation itself remained a bit philosophical, building on Stafford Beer's 1970 utopian vision of establishing a "real time economy" in Chile.

Afterwards, Prof. Harri Oinas-Kukkonen from University of Oulu commented on the connection between social media and personalization. He was followed by Raul Lansink, from the Dutch open innovation consultancy Favela Fabric. His most memorable claim "Customer co-creation starts inside". When moving into customer co-creation, start within your own company first before reaching out. Do an idea contest with your employees or sales partners to get a better understanding and internal commitment.

After lunch, the perhaps most interesting session of the conference started, titled "Customer-Centricity, Luxury, and Personalization". The keynote was provided by Louise Guay from MVM.com, who rocked the hall as usual. Her statement: Real personalization is the reduction of choice complexity while keeping the experience of browsing. She introduced the new 3D creation kit that allows the generation of "try-able virtual garments" for free by an user (a service for which MVM has charged $2000 in the beginning and §300 later).

Afterwards, Kamel Ouadi, Director for everything online and interactive at Louis Vuitton, provided a great insight into personalization at LV. At LV, they see "mass customization and personalization as a great opportunity to expand the interaction with consumers." Interestingly, today this starts not with the products (here, monogramming and customizing the interior of 25K trunks still is the only option), but with the brand experience. For their recent space campaign, Kamel created a great site where users can become a film director and cut a LV movie according to their own desires. Their objective: Using personalization to emotionally engage consumers with the LV experience.

Next, Philip Rooke, new VP at Spreadshirt, provided his perspective on luxury: self expression. The main claim and vision of Spreadshirt, to support self impression, can be seen perhaps as the ultimate form of self expression (a theme that also came up during the Fashion Lab on Thu, more on this later). While the products and presentations of Spreadshirt could not be different to LV, they shared a joint vision: True luxury is when you are able to express yourself as you like.

The next panelists reinforced the trend to customization and personalization in the luxury industry. Uché Okonkwo, Executive Director & Founder of LUXE COR, and Sandy Carter, Social Media Evangelist at IBM, provided a number of further case studies how luxury houses today enable consumers over the internet to create custom items of their choice.

The last panel started with perhaps the most entertaining presentation by Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman and Executive Creative Director of OgilvyOne Worldwide Ltd. He applied behavioral economics on personalization and customization (a bit) and marketing in general (a lot). The panelists, Bo Harald from Tieto, Johan Wallin, CEO of Synocusm and Jarmo Suominen brought Bruce Kasanoff's vision from the first conference day into practice. Their talks focused on personalization in the service industries and true mass matching, and provide a good outlook and summary of the conference.

Overall, another great day! And while being already a bit tired, we closed the day with a reception by the mayor of Helsinki in City Hall and then drinks and dance in a Helsinki night club.

Mass Customization Media Blitz in the German Press

After 15 years in the business, I have see many waves of hype around mass customization. But in the German media, it never has been as strong as recently.

Probably triggered by an article in BrandEins (the most innovative German business publication) and a report about mass customization by dpa, the German Press Agency, many newspapers and weeklies followed with articles in the last weeks. There was a report in the main news show of RTL. And last weekend, even taz - die tageszeitung, a German newspaper on the left side of the spectrum that normally has no reports about hedonistic products, had a long report.

The theme (similar to the article in BrandEins): Mass Customization of food. I have commented on this category in a previous post. 

What do I learn from the sudden media attention about a phenomenon that is 20 years old?

1) Perhaps the time now is ripe? People are more internet savvy, willing not just to shop but also to configure custom goods online. At the same time, there is a growing level of sophistication of the market, more knowledge how to create a great MC website has been distributed ...

2) In economical bad times, people love easy sophistication with a bit of affordable luxury - which a custom chocolate bar or your own tea creation probably offers. So this is a great product for bad times.

3) Some journalists are not too creative, and when one is writing a nice article on a new theme, other copy. The same, by the way, is true for many academics.

4) The idea to customize an item still is big news and a real novelty for most consumers. In my classes for students and executives alike, I am still astonished how many people have never ever heard about the possibility to customize products or services online. We finally have to create a better understanding how to communicate mass customization!

=> Context information: For a collection of press articles covering mass customization, please head here (shameless self promotion as all these articles quote me :-)

MCPC 2009 Report Day 2: Benedict Dellaert, Zazzle, and Joe Pine

The first day of the MCPC ended with a great dinner in the center of Helsinki and one drink too much in the bar later. Still, everyone was back in time for the second day.

For more impressions and summaries, also check out the many Twitter feeds on the MCPC 2009 that report live!

MCPC 2009 Day 2: Prof. Benedict Dellaert from Erasumus University in Rotterdam started the second day with a great keynote on "Designing the gateway -- gateways to product spaces". He provided a very good overview of the state of research in marketing on the space where customers and suppliers interact today.

He started his differentiation of personalization and customization: Personalization is often a strategy of retailers to passively support customers to find the right selection, e.g. by using profile data or collaborative filtering. At the same time, mass customization is seen as a strategy by manufacturers to actively integrate customers in a co-design process. Along this line (a continuum, not two alternatives), Benedict then addressed the crucial question how to match solution options available in general with the capabilities of customers to make the choice: "It is nice to have the flexibility [to mass customize], but consumers also have to have the capabilities to make the right choice."

James Johnson from Avery Dennison and Jeff Beaver & David Gross from Zazzle followed with the second plenary presentation. The project that they presented was actually initiated during the Business Seminar of the Smart Customization Group at MIT last November: There at our meeting, the multi-billion incumbent  Avery Dennison met the much smaller Zazzle.com and started a cooperation that was launched last Thursday.

Custom binders are the first product that shoppers can customize under the new business alliance. Shoppers will be able to generate custom binders for contests, promotions and sales, or business binders for the office. They can select from thousands of templates, or start from scratch with a blank canvas. Like with every Zazzle designs, people can create stores and make money by selling designs in the Zazzle marketplace.

The interesting thing is that Zazzle is not offering its manufacturing system. "At Avery, we've been looking at Mass Customization for several years. Our focus on Enterprise Lean Sigma has allowed us to develop the expertise in manufacturing to be able to provide custom-made one-off products while still enjoying the benefits of mass production," said James Johnson who is the Director of Business Development at Avery Dennison Office Products. "Zazzle's software capabilities plus their partnerships with leading branded content owners complement our manufacturing core competencies." So it takes more than flexible manufacturing to do mass customization successfully.

Consider what the cooperation with a MC platform provided for Avery. The company was offering custom binders already since about one year over their own website. In just three days on Zazzle, there already were 60 times more designs created than in 365 days on their own website.

After these exciting keynotes, the conference participants again spread out into parallel sessions on all issues being custom and personal. Again, it is impossible to cover the breadth of discussion here.

After lunch, Fabrizio Salvador and I provided a plenary presentation based on our recent Sloan Management Review paper. I am sure some blogging participants will cover it soon, and will refer to them for a review.

After many exciting more parallel sessions, the day ended with Joe Pine, who provided some outlook.

His last slide probably was the most memorable:

• In 1987, when Stan Davis coined the term, mass customization = oxymoron.
• In 1993, when Joe wrote his first book, mass customization = "the new frontier".
• In 2009, when we all came together to the MCPC 2009 in Helsinki, mass customization = imperative!

I believe that the first 2.5 days of the provided great evidence that now mass customization and personalization are really becoming an imperative for businesses of all kinds -- and also for other organizations like education, public management, or non-profits.

The conference continues tomorrow with the business seminar at the Helsinki School of Economics.

MCPC 2009 Report Day 1: Joe Pine on the Future of MC and Bruce Kasanoff on Personalization

Just coming back from a long conference dinner and drinks (so excuse the typos), but here a first report from the MCPC 2009:

The main MCPC conference today took off with an opening presentation by the CEO of KONE. Matti Alahutha very neatly showed that for a multi-billion company like KONE, mass customization in an  essential driver of value and competition.

Next, Joe Pine -- brilliant as usual -- inspired us with some ideas on the "Future of mass customization"

He started with his famous 4*4 picture of process change / product change, placing invention (craft businesses), mass production, continuous improvement, and mass customization in it (if you haven't seen this argument, look up for Joe's speeches in YouTube).

From there, he moved into four themes where he sees mass customization is going. Here are his key thoughts in a nutshell (as I believe they are the roadmap for his next books :-):

1) From mass customization to continuous innovation: In order to build a sustainable mass customization business, you cannot stop with an existing MC solution space.  So what Joe sees next is connecting mass customization with tools of user co-creation and user innovation to continuously work on the solution space of a MC offering.

2) From markets of one to "one of markets": The traditional notion is that mass customization serves super niche markets, up to the market of one. But Joe thinks this is not the end, and we will move to "one-of markets". This very neatly addressed our conference theme of "mass matching". Consider you as a traveler. When YOU are traveling for business, your needs with regard to hotel selection, plane scheduling , or eating are very different compared to the (same) YOU when are traveling with your family for vacation. So the same YOU are representing different markets.

This is where personalization and mass customization meet. And a large future of mass customization will be to work not just on creating new products, but bundling (matching) them according to different "markets'"needs.

3) From reality to virtual reality. This is the theme of the next new book of Joe coming up. When the physical world is not offering enough variety, you move to the virtual space. Here, not only ultimate variety is possible, but also variety with regard to the self. Just as you are different person in front of your children as you are in front of your spouse, you can be a different person in a virtual world. So virtual reality is offering the opportunity of personalizing the self.

4) From MC of offerings to MC of management. This probably was the largest development Joe suggested. His idea: Why not take the tools and thinking of mass customization and transfer them to the way of managing a company. For this idea, Joe referred to Kim Korn of Business Architecture who originally came up with the idea of the Progression of Innovation Value. It reminded me also to a number of similar lines of thinking on "management innovation", as sketched for example by Gary Hamel. We today know that there is not "one best way" to manage a company. But at the same time, also "craft customizing" an organization may be not the best way. So I am curious to see what our community takes out of this and how "mass customization of management" will look alike. Johann Wallin, for example, in his presentation already was building on a similar idea, called "mass-co-configuration" of a value chain.

With so much food for thought, we entered into the parallel sessions. There was too much to listen to and to learn that I can summarize this here, so I just invite you to browse through the conference abstracts.

After lunch, Bruce Kasanoff, got everyone excited with his keynote: "Personalization will be THE driver of the economy within the next 8 years!" (yes, not "a", or "one of", but "THE"). He very much broadened the perspective of everyone but illustrating that the theme of customization and personalization is much larger than we cover today here.

His argument: the basic mechanism of personalization, "sense - reason - respond", can be applied for many markets -- or are already being applied. Consinder the revolution in media.DailyMe, MeeHive, DailySnooze, or FanFeedr are all start-ups that recently started with offerings for the future of media. All these companies' core is an algorithm to match user preferences to existing content. Still no one in this industry uses the term mass customization or personalization to address this.

Bruce made a second very interesting case about the development of personalized medicine ... go to hi blog for the full argument!

His second main point was: "To work on personalization means that we need much more interdisciplinary work". Well, in innovation management, the cure for all problems is seen in the interdisciplinary team. But Bruce has a point here that to understand the full consequences of personalization and customization, a firm really has to bring together people from inside and outside and different disciplines to make personalization happen. Sounds difficult? Yes, but when personalization is THE driver of competition, this effort is well invested.

I am looking forward very much to the second day of the main conference tomorrow!

Context information: ==> Great report on Day 1 also by Mass Sinclair in his blog no.retro.

Chocri Announces U.S. Launch -- Customized Chocolate Bars from Berlin

Recently I wrote about the move of Zazzle into the German market. Now a German mass customization company moves to the US, chocri (www.chocri.de). The URL for the US site will be http://www.createmychocolate.com.

The company only recently came to my closer awareness when it won an entrepreneurship award by WirtschaftsWoche, a German business weekly, for their concept of personalized chocolate bars. It is one of the ten or more recent start-ups in Germany which were inspired by MyMuesli to enter the market of mass customized food.

The idea behind the chocri chocolate bar is simple: consumers can choose their chocolate base (dark, milk, or white), and then select "toppings" of their choice to personalize their chocolate bar. Toppings include both the traditional (nuts and dried fruit) and the outrageous (coriander and chives)! Upon checkout, customers can then choose to create a personalized name for their chocolate bar as well as select their wrapping paper.

I have to admit that I am still skeptical about the sustainable value of this business concept, but I am more than happy to accept that I am wrong and that this kind of food is a future of mass customization.

For me, it starts to get interesting when the functional or nutrition value of the food can be adopted to a person's nutrition requirements. But in the moment, hedonistic offerings rule the market, many of them in the field of gifts and presents.

Chocri hopes to benefit from the continuous mass customization trend in the U.S. and will start selling customized chocolate to U.S. consumers in January 2010.

In a press release, co-founders Michael Bruck and Franz Duge say, "Since chocri was launched, we always believed in developing a close relationship with our customers, who are the true creators of chocri; and so this award is not only a recognition of our hard work, but also the generous contribution of our early fans and supporters."

By constantly polling its customers for new ideas on toppings and flavors, chocri has established itself as a receptive, engaging brand that encourages its customers to be involved in the company's decision-making process and growth.

The young start-up, based in Berlin, has already sold 120,000 of its bars since launching last year (about 600-2000 a day, for prices between 3 and 8 Euros), and declares its revenue to be in the mid-six digits.

MCPC 2009 Conference Update: Why you should travel to Helsinki in 42 days! Early registration deadline ending soon!

Now taking place for the 5th time, the biannual MCPC Conference is the largest and leading event in the field. After meetings in Hong Kong (twice), Munich, and Boston, the conference is coming to Helsinki. For this first time, the conference is organized not by Mitch Tseng and myself, but by a great local organizing and program committee, chaired by Prof. Jarmo Suominen from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki and the MIT Media Lab. He and his team have created a great conference with many innovative contributions to the program layout. More than 100 presentations have been selected from the submitted proposals, plus many invited speakers.

---

UPDATE: Full conference program has been published !! More than 100 presentations and speakers! Registration is now open. more info here

---

Have a detailed look at the conference web site (when you are browsing around, you will see that the site is quite "Intelligent" and adapts to your navigation behavior!! After registration, you will also be able to create your personalized conference program).

Why is the MCPC different to your usual business meeting? Read some reports about past conference: No-Retro on MCPC 2007, FashionTech on MCPC 2007. and Made For One summary of MCPC reports.

The MCPC 2009 will span over five days (Sun-Thu), with Mon-Wed being the core days of the conference.

---

Sunday: Pre-Workshop (Oct 4, 2009):  Sunday afternoon the conference will kick-off with a hands-on, interactive workshop for all of you who want to get a focused introduction into mass customization and customer co-creation. We will start with an overview by Fabrizio Salvador, IE Business School, and Frank Piller on the strategic foundations of mass customization. The idea is to provide a thought framework for your conference experience. Then we will break into three groups, led by experts in their field, to talk in larger details on aspects of particular interest for you.

Sunday Evening: Opening reception (free for everyone with conference registration). Meet old and new friends in the great atmosphere of the MUSEUM

Monday and Tuesday: Research Conference (Oct 5 and 6, 2009).

Listen to more than 100 presentations, keynotes, panels, and special sessions on all topics of customization, personalization, and customer co-creation. The core conference will take place at the Helsinki University of Art and Design, a very creative space. The days will start with an opening session by the conference organizers and the grand signore of mass customization, B. Joseph Pine. A special keynote will be provided by Bruce Kasanoff, on "The Emerging Personalization Economy" (more about Bruce). For the entire program, head here (full program coming soon).

As in the previous years, these two core days will allow you to connect with people doing, researching, being interested in, writing about, and making money from mass customization and personalization. Participants come from all over the world, so expect a very rich networking experience!

Wednesday: Business Seminar (Oct. 7, 2009). If you have limited time, just book this one day. It provides in form of a business seminar a focused introduction into mass customization. In keynotes and panels, the three themes of the conference, Customization, Creativity & Configuration, will be addressed. Look for engaged discussions and another great networking opportunity in a more formal setting.

Thursday: MCPC Labs (Oct 8, 2009). A real innovation. These labs are included in any conference registration and allow you to finalize your MCPC experience in a smaller group in a different setting. Three or four Helsinki companies and organizations will host a one day workshop on topics like fashion customization, communication, MC and architecture, etc.

Consider as an example the "Taivas Lab & workshop: Co-creating Me":  Traditionally brands have been co-creating people, offering them means to express their identities. Today people are co-creating companies by participating in marketing or even in product development. They do this invited or uninvited. Taivas Lab looks at ways in which companies can work as Editors in Chief of themselves, letting people get involved in making a company an icon. Viewpoints during the day will include both social and other innovative media and platforms. Cases range from Habbo Hotel, virtual world for teenagers to Forum, the central Helsinki shopping mall where two young women will live 24/7, reporting their lives and shopping through videos, photos and text entries.

---

As you see, there is so much to experience and to share during the MCPC 2009 in Helsinki, As every year, the conference is a non-profit event with conference fees as low as possible (many volunteers are making this event possible)! Hotels are also rather cheap these days (we got a Hilton in the City for 80 Euros/night), and there are plenty of cheap flights to Helsinki.

I will travel to Helsinki this week for final preparations and program planning, and will report back! But for now, reserve the days, book your participation, and discuss with us in Helsinki in a few weeks!!

---

All conference facts here:

MCPC 2009: The World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization

Helsinki, October 4-8, 2009

2009 Conference theme: Match Making: Customization, Creativity & Configuration

www.mcpc2009.com

Milk or sugar? New repository of customization offerings

A new repository for mass customized products was launched today. Still a long way to go to match the 600+ entries of our configurator-database.com, but a great attempt with a fresh look.

The crew behind the "milk or sugar" website (look here why this name) is ILUMY, an Amsterdam based design agency. Initially to serve research for a client project, they built a database of websites where you can customize and order products online. They added reviews, and the database became a site, offering some links to interesting sites for customization, like a custom sleeping bag, samurai sword, bicycle, skate board, scrabble board, watch, machine parts, perfume, lingerie, wallpaper or lego model. And soon, your built to order fire extinguisher, guitar, radio controlled car, protein shake or kanu.

Soon, visitors shall be able to also post reviews and upload images of the things they had made to order.

Sounds like a great idea -- and I am very happy about every new repository of things custom!

Enjoy: www.milkorsugar.com

Custom Jewelry: FORBES Video report about Paragon Lake

I wrote earlier that one of the large trends in mass customization is the creation of a network structure where an intermediary brokers between diverse retailers and manufacturers for custom products. Customax.com or Bivolino Services are good examples for this trend in the fashion industry.

As reported before, Paragon Lake wants to bring this model to the retail world. Forbes just published a nice Video report about them (you have to watch a short commercial before it starts!), with interviews with the key persons behind the concept.

Paragon Lake was founded in 2006 by Matt Lauzon while he and fellow students were at Babson College. They were exploring personalization and other new ways that people shop. They soon realized there was an opportunity to drastically improve the way fine jewelry is bought and sold. Their vision led to the creation of Paragon Lake. On a presentation at the Smart Customization Seminar at MIT in November 2008, Matt introduced his company to a larger audience.

The group's focus on fine jewelry was inspired by a friend's search for a present for his girlfriend. The friend thought that jewelry would be the perfect gift, but considered jewelry shopping experience to be intimidating and overwhelming. After visiting a few local jewelers, he was unable to find a piece that was just right. Hearing his story, Matt realized that technology could not only help fix this problem, but also revolutionize an industry.

Paragon Lake joins consumers, retailers and designers together to create one of a kind jewelry using a special sales application tool with really cool rendering capabilities. The video explains the concept quite neatly.

A good background report about the company is here.

Spreadshirt: Quality and NPS are King! Visit at Spreadshirt's Leipzig Headquarters

Last week, just before my departure to HBS where I participate in the 2009 GCPCL, I had the opportunity to spend a full day at Spreadshirt's new German Headquarters and factory in Leipzig. Three colleagues from the Aachen team and I had meetings with Spreadshirt CEO Jana Eggers, Communication Guru Andreas Miles, Company Speaker Eike Sievert and other members of the Spreadshirt team. After a briefing we started our day with a tour through the factory, followed by more than six hours of discussions and talks about the various business aspects. It was great fun and learning.

Spreadshirt went beta in April 2001 as the brainchild of Lukas Gadowski, at this time a student in Leipzig, Germany. Their PR sheet calls "Spreadshirt the "things you wear" answer to the growing desire for personal branding -- letting customers quickly create one-of-a-kind, high-quality, expressive apparel." With t-shirts as the company's specialty, customers can create branded merchandise with a range of around 80 printable items, from sweatshirts and jackets to t-shirts and dog-shirts. Spreadshirt also is owner of La Fraise, the European Threadless clone.

Next to the idea of mass customization, the possibility for users to open their own online shop to sell their creation to others has been part of the business from the start. Spreadhsirt thus is part of the new generation of mass customization companies that not just let consumers design a custom product but also harvest a niche opportunity for a specific design. It was a nice opportunity to contrast Spreadshirt to my visit at Zazzle earlier this spring. More than 500.000 Spreadshirt-powered shops are open for business today.

A great example of how Spreadshirt enables new kind of business ideas is the CNN Headline shirt, one of Spreadshirt's great successes. Since 2008, CNN one-off headline T-shirts. On their homepage, you can click a little mini T-shirt icon next to a headline, and poof, get a T-shirt made with that headline, time-stamp, and CNN logo on it. The initiative has been nominated as one of the Top-3 marketing ideas in 2008, and until today, thousands of different T-shirts have been created, all one of a kind and on demand in one day. But exactly the same infrastructure is also offered to consumers who want to create their own headline store with headlines from their local school paper.

These are my key takeaways about Spreadshirt from my visit:

1. Quality rules. While at my visit at Zazzle everyone talked about their great online technologies, at Spreadshirt everyone was obsessed with quality. Almost every statement started with "Spreadshirt wants to be the quality leader in our segment" et al. Continuous quality in products and printing is a number one objective for Spreadshirt. They even have a sophisticated testing lab to test all possible fabric / color combinations before a new shirt or fabric goes online. While focus of quality sounds like a great statement, though, I am not sure whether customers really always honor superior quality in this product category. Would be worth while a more detailed study!

2. Self expression is a HUGE market. When asked what is the particular product they sell, Jana frequently answers "self expression". And this is a very nice way to look on mass customization (bringing it also in live with Joe Pine's recent thinking on authenticity). Expressing ourselves is an inherent demand of every human being. Offering custom goods in a meaningful way is a great way to tap into this market. But not many companies are positioning their MC offering in such a way.

3. It's all about metrics. Next to quality, the company totally went NPS. The net promoter score is an industry measure to identify customer satisfaction and loyalty. And as enthusiastic customers are the best prerequisite for sustained growth, Spreadshirt has a good reason to confidently look ahead: Spreadshirt's NPS of 42% places it in the top quarter of many famous online firms.

The NPS (http://www.netpromoter.com) is based on the assumption that the customer's willingness to recommend a company to others is directly related to their satisfaction and loyalty. The value of the NPS is determined with the help of one question: "How likely is it that you would recommend company XY to a friend or colleague?" The possible answers range from 0 (unlikely) to 10 (very likely). Enthusiastic customers that decided on 9 or 10 are identified as promoters.  Would be nice to have a study on NPS ov various mass customization companies to compare.

4. Focus on one category. While Zazzle and Cafepress, Spreadshirt's main competitors, have a wide array of products in their assortments, Spreadshirt focuses on apparel (or "things you can wear"). In this category, however, they really have the long tail of products. But talking to their warehouse manager confirmed my old experience: Whenever you give ´plenty of colors to people to choose from, they select while, black, and blue.

5. Mass customization manufacturing is personal. While we were visiting during a slow time of the year (summer vacation period, no special holidays), the factory was quite busy in processing orders. Most orders are fulfilled in a rather complex – and human labor demanding – way by printing the design patterns on foils, cutting these and applying them by hand on the final shirt (and this in a high-wage country like Germany!). Here I was astonished by a young and motivated workforce that did these labor intensive jobs in an apparently joyful way.

6. Digital printing is on its way. Fast. While custom digital printing on different fabrics in large scale has been discussed for ages, the technology finally made a great jump and seems to be ready for scalability.

7. Give it a personal touch. I really liked the idea that Spreadshirt's factory workers have been empowered to provide direct feedback to customers which created a shirt an employee really like. She then can put a "love mark", a small note, into the package expressing her appreciation for the design. To not inflate the love, however, the amount of love marks every employee gets is limited. Nice idea!

8. Bad IP legislation hurts. When moving through the factory and following the order taking process, it became obvious that one of the largest cost drivers is IP protection of designs and phrases. Huge boards in the factory showed examples of "no go" designs and words. It is amazing which simple and easy phrases and terms you can protect at the trademark office, allowing no-one else to use it. Another reason why the world should become more "creative commons".

This issue also addresses the fine line a mass customization company has to go when selling self-expression. When I want to express myself, I am not happy when I cannot use easy symbols like a red star (protected!) or any Olympia related stuff (very much verboten). In some blogs, Spreadshirt is called an "IP Nazi" for turning back too many designs. But with some lawyers making a nice business of ordering shirts with "forbidden" items and then sending a cost note and dissuasion, you better be careful and turn back your customers.

Managing this trade-offs is one of the specific trade-offs a mass customization company has to manage.

9. The market for mass customization still is a tiny niche, but growing rapidly. Confirming the research we recently finalized for our SERVIVE project (an EU funded project on mass customization or apparel), the Spreadshirters confirmed our assumption that customized products are still addressing a very small fraction of the market only. The core task today is to educate the market, not so much surprising it with ever new offerings. Most consumers just have never heard about the opportunity that there is something else then ready-made stuff on the shelves. Sounds strange to you when you are reading this blog and this lengthy posting until here, but these people exist. And they are the majority!

10. It is FUN to work for a mass customization T-Shirt company. Almost as much fun as working for a nice university. Young people, no ties or suits, plenty of room for exploration, and producing creative intellectual outcomes.

(Updated) Will New Coca-Cola Vending Machine Allow Ultimate Customization at the Point-of-Sale?

Update: Coca Cola just contacted me and revealed the brand name for this venture: Coca Cola Freestyle(TM), see press release below!

Finally a concept could become reality that Joe Pine has described more than 16 years ago (as a future dream scenario) in his book "Mass Customization": The ultimate soda fountain that offers unlimited choice, as Owen Morris in a newspaper article and Tim Stevens in Engadget.com report. (Note: I could not get more information about this concept. But if you know more, please drop me a line as I am very interested in these kind of localized customization devices).

 Currently, your typical soda fountain in a fast-food joint features perhaps eight to ten standard choices, usually offering nothing more exotic than "peach flavored ice tea." These machines work through syrup bags. The restaurant buys a bag from Coke or Pepsi, hooks it up to a soda (water) line and then the fountain combines the carbonated water with the syrup to create your soda. The machines are limited by soda lines, which tend to gunk up with sugar mold, and by bulky soda bags that weigh 30 pounds or more.

The new Coke machine is completely different. Coca-Cola has announced a new soda fountain that can hold more than 100 sodas. That's ten times more than current soda fountains.

The new fountain is like an ink printer with space for hundreds of cartridges. Each cartridge contains a concentrated formula of ingredients. When you press your choice, say Diet Coke, the machine will tell cartridge 12 to release three squirts, cartridge 81 two squirts and so on, then it combines it with carbonated water and you get the same drink as old machines.

But: The new fountains can hold a lot more of these little cartridges, so they can handle a lot more flavors. Coca-Cola promises 120 different drinks, but there could be even more as the technology gets better and the company gets more confident. You think these are way to many choices for a standard drink like sodas? Think again; Already today, Coca-Cola is listing more than 2,800 beverages on their website! And I personally would love to have a German "Apfelschorle" with still water and a 20:80 mix of juice to water … something even waiters have a problem to bring in a restaurant.

The first new fountains are rolling out in Atlanta and California in this spring. Assuming tests there go well and the public loves its overwhelming choices, the new fountains would come to other US cities next year.

But there may be a downside: How will Coke protects its customers from the paradox of choice, when too many options overwhelm our brains and shuts them down from making a decision. Just think of the lines as "the thirsty yet indecisive ponder 15 different flavors of Diet Coke?" (Tim Stevens).

---

Update: Press release from The Coca Cola Company on April 28, 2009:

THE COCA-COLA COMPANY INVITES CONSUMERS TO EXPERIENCE “FREESTYLE”
New Proprietary Fountain Dispenser Gets a Brand Name

ATLANTA, Apr. 28, 2009 – The next generation fountain beverage dispenser has a “stylish” new name.

North America today revealed that “Coca-Cola Freestyle TM” is the brand name and logo for its new proprietary fountain dispenser entering market testing this summer.  The fountain’s brand name captures its ability to deliver unprecedented beverage variety to suit any consumer taste – all packaged in an innovative and interactive fountain experience. 

“Coca-Cola Freestyle brings to life the refreshingly positive outlook that has always been associated with Coca-Cola,” said Chandra Stephens-Albright, Group Director of Marketing and Business Development for the brand. 

“It brings back the magic of the fountain of the past, re-imagines it for the future and then takes it a step farther by celebrating the idea that consumers can truly have their say at fountain – with choices tailored completely for them.”

The new self-serve fountains – which represent a complete departure from equipment The Coca-Cola Company has offered before – have been in development for nearly four years.  The sleek new units being tested are touch screen operated, enabling consumers to select from more than 100 calorie and no-calorie brands – including varieties of waters, juices, teas and sparkling beverages that have never been sold in the United States.

The Coca-Cola Freestyle dispenser uses proprietary PurePour Technology™ to make dozens of branded beverages fresh to order, in the same amount of space as the current eight-valve machine.  It will be tested in select quick-serve restaurants in Orange County, Calif., and Atlanta this summer before a wider introduction currently planned for early next year.

Cracking the Code of Mass Customization: New MIT SMR Paper

Most companies can benefit from mass customization. The key is to think of it as a process for aligning an organization with its customers’ needs.

In the current issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review (Spring 2009 Issue), Fabrizio Salvador, Pablo Martin de Holan and I discuss how mass customization should be not any longer seen as a specialized business strategy but as a bundle of capabilities that could make sense for most businesses.

In the paper, we suggest that mass customization is not some exotic approach with limited application. Instead, it is a strategic mechanism that is applicable to most businesses, provided that it is appropriately understood and deployed. This kind of thinking also is the underlying logic of our upcoming Mass Customization Executive Education Class at IE Business School.

In the paper, we suggest three common capabilities that will determine the fundamental ability of a company to benefit from mass customization thinking:

(1) Solution Space Development.  A mass customizer must first identify the idiosyncratic needs of its customers, specifically, the product attributes along which customer needs diverge the most. (This is in stark contrast to a mass producer, which must focus on identifying central tendencies so that it can target those needs with a limited number of standard products.) Once that information is known and understood, a business can define its “solution space,” clearly delineating what it will offer -- and what it will not.

(2) Robust Process Design.  Next, a mass customizer needs to ensure that an increased variability in customers’ requirements will not significantly impair the firm’s operations and supply chain.  This can be achieved through robust process design -- the capability to reuse or recombine existing organizational and value-chain resources -- to deliver customized solutions with near mass-production efficiency and reliability

(3) Choice Navigation. Lastly, a mass customizer must support customers in identifying their own problems and solutions while minimizing complexity and the burden of choice.  It is important to remember that, when a customer is exposed to myriad choices, the cost of evaluating those options can easily outweigh the additional benefit from having so many alternatives. The resulting syndrome has been called the “paradox of choice,” in which too many options can actually reduce customer value instead of increasing it.  In such situations, customers might postpone their buying decisions and, worse, classify the vendor as difficult and undesirable. To avoid that, a company can provide choice navigation to simplify the ways in which people explore its offerings

But a company does not have to apply all three capabilities in full scope together. For many companies, it already is a great step forward to just work on one of these capabilities to get more customer-centric without, however, having to master the full complexity of a mass customization system.

Read the full article and learn more how these capabilities can be implemented in practice. MIT offers the full paper for free after registration on the SMR website. You also can purchase it there  ($6.50) for further distribution.

Context:

• Posting about the paper in the MIT blog.
• Reference to the article: Fabrizio Salvador, Martin de Holan and Frank Piller: Cracking the Code of Mass Customization. MIT Sloan Management Review, 50 (2009) 3 (Spring 2009): 70-79.
• Free online access to the paper.

Democratization of Manufacturing: Great Article in ASME's "Mechanical Engineering" Journal

In the recent issue of Mechanical Engineering (April 2009), the journal of the powerful American Society of Mechanical Engineering , Associate Editor Jean Thilmany has published a great article on mass customization. His conclusion: Mass customization is part-way here; when the rest will arrive is anyone’s guess.

The article provides a great comparison of traditional consumer-co-design driven mass customization (you designing your shirt in an online-configurator), traditional engineer-to-order and small-batch production, and the new opportunities provided by 3D printing and rapid manufacturing.

As Thilmany observes in the article:

"Pine’s definition [of mass customization] can get a bit muddled, what with the growth of rapid prototyping and related technologies such as 3-D printing. Is a rapid prototype an instance of mass customization? Does an object printed on a 3-D printer qualify?

If the printed piece is meant to be used as an end product—not a prototype—it’s an example of a mass customized product, Pine said.

“I always believe words have meaning,” he said. “It’s called rapid prototyping because you’re making a prototype.”

But say you design an object using an online service like Shapeways of Eindhoven, the Netherlands? That company allows you to upload your own 3-D models. Shapeways prints your object on a 3-D printer and sends it to you. You’ve created your own custom product, Pine said."

But what is the future of mass customization?

Donal Reddington, who runs the Web site MadeForOne.com, is quoted in the article on this:

"So far mass customization—of varying degrees—has supplemented mass production, Reddington said.  So why, in this age of the Internet, hasn’t it come closer to replacing mass production in both the retail and engineering sectors?

“The consumer society is very much based on the idea of gratification. I walk into a shop, see something I like, and walk out with a sense of satisfaction at having bought it,” Reddington said.

“But the predominant mass customization business model that’s gained root since the mid-1990s is the online model, which provided customers with the facility to go online and configure the product, order it, and get exactly what they wanted delivered after one week. Or maybe two or three weeks,” he added.

And where will this lead to?

Despite the impediments to adoption, all the experts interviewed expect mass customization to grow.
“Going into the future, the Internet will facilitate a new wave of mass customization, where customers will create and trade designs for physical products in the same way they trade music files,” Reddington said.  

And not only will consumers find ever-more Internet-based design tools at their disposal, they’ll continue to see advances in the capability to build their own products to their specifications, Piller said.

For the full article, available for free online, head to:
http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2009/April/Democratization_Manufacturing.cfm

Interview: Bruce Kasanoff of NowPossible.com on "Personal=Smarter"

Bruce Kasanoff is founder and editor of NowPossible.com, which "covers the leading edge of personalization". Bruce wrote the one of the first business books in our domain of mass customization & personalization, "Making It Personal" (2002). He was head of training, research and development for Peppers and Rogers Group, a leading personalization consultancy. The Chartered Institute of Marketing cited Bruce among their inaugural listing of the 50 most influential thinkers in marketing and business today. He works with innovative vendors and enterprises, helping them leverage personalization strategies to build lasting competitive advantage.

"Personal=Smarter," says Bruce, explaining that the more a company customizes, the smarter it becomes. The smarter it gets, the more formidable a competitor it becomes. He has delivered training programs, workshops and keynote speeches to a wide variety of organizations in 21 states and eight countries. His audiences have included technology executives, physicians, managers, customer service representatives and entrepreneurs.

And as he shares in the following interview, Bruce is writing a second book on the topic! So stay tuned for much more brilliant ideas from this great mind in personalization!

FTP: Bruce, there has been a long discussion about terms and concepts in our field. So, what is personalization in your understanding?

BK: Personalization is using technology to accommodate the differences between people. Done right, it's a win/win strategy for providing a better outcome for both the service provider and the individuals involved. For example, if a doctor gives you a test to determine which treatment will work best for you before she starts your treatment, that's personalization. Likewise, if a company gives you the option to tell them when and how to contact you, that's also personalization.

FTP: How is this different to mass customization, where are differences and complements between personalization and mass customization?

BK: Mass customization is a process for implementing personalization. In some respects, personalization is a goal and mass customization is one way to accomplish that goal. But we need to be careful about defining or debating semantics. Both personalization and mass customization push a company towards being more responsive to the marketplace and thus being more nimble. Both result in a firm that can react faster and more effectively to volatility. Both enable a company to build defendable competitive advantages, because both require a firm to track, understand and accommodate the needs of its customers.

FTP: You are one of the earliest voices and thinkers in the field. What originally drew your interest to the concept of personalization?

BK: I was very lucky. One day I read "The One to One Future" by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, and thought it was brilliant. At the time, I was working for Ogilvy & Mather, and I wrote a strategy brief for a client that used some of the personalization ideas from that book. Shortly thereafter, I saw a little story in our local paper announcing that Don and Martha were starting their company in my town! I sent them an email asking if they wanted a partner, and included a version of my brief. One week later, I was their partner. That was 1996, and it gave me the luxury of spending all my time thinking about personalization and working with many of the pioneers in the field.

FTP: What are recent trends you see with regard to personalization? Are there any industries or individual companies driving these trends?

BK: Personalization is everywhere, although it's not necessarily called that. I dare anyone to name an industry in which personalization is not playing an increasingly important role. It impacts how you search for information, share opinions, make decisions, place orders, use products, get service, and live your life. Google is a leading practitioner, and both IBM and HP are key enablers. For example, IBM's "smarter planet" approach is a wonderful embodiment of the "Personal=Smarter" logic I've been talking about for some time. I was thrilled to see one of the world's largest companies adopt this theme as a selling point for its clients.

The most important trend, just now emerging, is the opportunity to personalize the development and care of our bodies and minds. It sounds dramatic to say it, but personalized medicine and education will literally impact the future of the human race. At present, "personalized" approaches are being used to restore health and function to people who have a physical challenge, such as the loss of a limb or of control over their body (such as ALS.) But as these technologies get cheaper and more powerful, they will be made available to everyone. For example, a brain-computer interface that a "locked-in" individual uses to communicate (because he can't speak) will someday help students learn faster and more in tune with their personal learning styles.

FTP: What is the largest challenge still to be overcome in personalization?

BK: The way we think. Personalization is not a difficult concept to understand, but it is a difficult concept to apply. It's easier for managers to look at customers, projects and investments in isolation, but personalization requires a process – and a mindset - that pervades an organization. It requires a different culture, and near-constant care and feeding of that culture. Not many managers understand this, yet.

FTP: What would be your main advice for a manager who wants to lead a personalization or mass customization implementation?

BK: Spend 25% of your time and budget on training, and on changing your culture. When it comes to personalization, training is not a one-time thing. Your staff and your systems are used to a non-personalized approach; they will constantly try to shift back in that direction. Unless you anticipate this and work consistently to prevent such backsliding, it will prevent you from enjoying measurable success.

FTP: You recently started your new blog, nowpossible.com. The depth and width of content you have provided there just within the last two months is really astonishing! What was your motivation to start this effort, and who is your target audience?

BK: Thanks. I'm writing a second book on personalization called "You! and Improved!", and as you know, writing is a solitary process. The website gives me an opportunity to test ideas, get feedback, and enlist innovative people in my work. I have two target audiences. The first includes innovators in organizations who are making personalization work better and better. The second comprises thoughtful individuals who would like to understand and benefit from this trend that can change their lives for the better.

FTP: To conclude: What is, in general and beyond your industry, the greatest personalization (and/or mass customization) offering ever – either one that is already existing or that you would like to get in the future?

BK: That's simple. I want to gain control over my fate, to anticipate and thus prevent the afflictions that would otherwise shorten my life or reduce my quality of life; to stay strong and mentally sharp longer than previous generations; and to be able to find and connect with the people and ideas that personally interest me.

Contact Bruce Kasanoff at (203) 341-9448 or bruce (at) nowpossible.com

New International Executive Program on Mass Customization: Learn in three days the fundamentals to profit from mass customization and how to bring this strategy into practice

Mass Customization: Turning heterogeneous customers into a source of profitability

IE Business School, Madrid, 6, 7 and 8 of May, 2009

I am glad to announce a new Executive Education Program in cooperation with IE Business School (ranked as the 5th business school in the world in Open Programs by the Financial Times, May 2008) that wants to provide a strategic  introduction into how to implement mass customization in your organization.

Download Program brochure.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

With this program participants will realize that offering superior fit to their customers’ needs does not have to necessarily come at the expenses of efficiency. Mass customization is a key strategy to meet this challenge. Many large corporations have started large-scale mass customization programs. The next one may be your company – you will learn why Mass Customization is far more applicable often believed. Most importantly, this program will introduce you to the different issues, tools and approaches that you can adopt to build profitability by serving differentiated customers’ needs – to move towards mass customization.

Over the past decade, we have studied mass customization in more than 200 different organizations. We found that mass customization is a strategic mechanism that is applicable to most businesses, provided that it is appropriately understood and deployed. The key is to view it basically as a process for aligning an organization with its customers’ needs. Mass customization is about moving towards these goals by developing a set of organizational capabilities  that will, over time, supplement and enrich an existing business.

"Mass Customization" is an innovative, ground-breaking international executive program designed to help executives gain competitive advantage by learning how to turn heterogeneities across their customers into a source of profits. Participants will gain a holistic understanding of the various capabilities – both organizational and individual – that their companies will have to develop in order to recognize and exploit heterogeneous customers’ needs. The program emphasizes a cross-functional approach and covers such issues such as organization design, CRM, and organizational change.

PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

This state-of-the-art program provides its participants with the latest practices and cutting-edge strategic insights to help them steer their organizations towards Mass Customization. The program is delivered by world-class experts on the topic, with excellent academic and practical experience.

Participants will develop a sound understanding of:

• Which capabilities your organization needs to move towards Mass Customization
• Which tools and approaches you can use to build these capabilities
• How to revamp your innovation processes to offer the “right customization”
• How you can you keep the costs of product and service customization under check
• How human capital contributes to achieving Mass Customization
• How IT and knowledge management can support Mass Customization
• How to orchestrate organizational change towards Mass Customization

For the full program structure, please download the program brochure.

WHY IE BUSINESS SCHOOL

IE Business School is a leading international business school oriented at providing top-level training for executives. The recognized prestige of its teaching faculty, the degree of excellence of the academic programs and a clear international focus are the keys behind a learning model that has ranked IE Business School among the best business schools in the world (IE Business School has been ranked the 5th business school in the world in Open Programs by the Financial Times, May 2008).

The Executive Education Programs offered by IE Business School aims to develop the vision, skills and management capabilities required to meet the many and varied challenges facing business organizations, both today and in the future. In recognition of the high quality and academic rigor of the programs, IE Business School is accredited by EQUIS (European Quality Improvement Systems), AACBS International (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) and AMBA (Association of MBAs).

Together with my co-instructures, I invite you to join our mass customization community and benefit from a unique learning experience in an environment that nurtures top-level talent both professionally and personally.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, please contact:

Karen Hobbs, International Executive Programs Manager

karen.hobbs@ie.edu
Tel.: +34 91 782 17 15
Fax: +34 91 745 47 62
www.execed.ie.edu/internationalprograms

For more information, please download the program brochure.

New toolkit for 3D printing: Turn digital pictures into 3D art

I previously reported several times about Shapeways, a spinn-off from the Lifestyle Incubator of Royal Philips Electronics, located in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The company provides 3D-printing capabilities to everyone.

Part of their mission is to provide users a set of toolkits that allow also the average consumer to create 3D objects without any CAD or programming skills. Today, Shapeways has introduced their so called "Photoshaper", a service that allows anyone to turn digital photographs into 3D printed objects.

Users can logon to Shapeways.com, upload any photo and order their creations directly from Shapeways. Now you not only can see your girl friend in your wallet when you are on a business trip, but touch her in 3D!

“Shapeways really makes 3D creation fun, easy and available for everyone,” commented Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO of Shapeways is quoted in a press release. “With Photoshaper we have empowered the average consumer to tap into technologies that used to be out of reach. In doing so Shapeways redefines online consumerism with direct access to unique and individually customized products that were never available before.”

Based on the contrast of the picture (light and dark) the Shapeways Photoshaper automatically creates a depth-layered 3D object that can be printed by Shapeways with the latest in 3D printing technology (I believe with a little bit of photoshopping before uploading the pictures, results can be improved a lot). The 3D photo will be produced and delivered globally within 10 days and costs between $40-50 (USD), including shipping. For best results. use a 1.5 megapixel or better picture. The size of the 3D photo is 13cm to 9cm (5.11” to 3.5”) landscape and portrait.

Context:

• Shapeways Photoshaper is available at: http://www.shapeways.com/creator/photoshaper
• Previous report about Shapeways: 3D Merchandising Platform

Customization of Music: SongMap helps you to create custom songs

Church music may be one of the most standardized products in the world. Since hundreds of years, church goers use the same songs and rhythms which often become part of the cultural tradition of a society.

Not any more. Last week, LifeWayWorship unveiled the latest innovation in digital music: SongMap, a web-based application that allows users to create custom arrangements of songs and produce corresponding audio files and sheet music.

Lifeway is a service company supporting the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the world’s largest providers of Christian products and services. But despite its religious mission, it uses latest technology and has invented really a world's first-of-a-kind product with its customizable music offering

Well, old-time readers of my blog my remember a similar offering of cutomizable music, but not in this scale and scope.

SongMap is the first web-based technology that allows users to choose specific sections of songs: verses, choruses, transitions, and more ... and then download sheet music and audio files that correspond to the custom arrangement. The technology was developed specifically to meet the needs of worship leaders who want more flexibility arranging songs for church services. At the same time, SongMap has broader implications throughout the mainstream music world.

“SongMap is the first technology that gives users the ability to change songs on the Internet to meet their own tastes,” said Mike Harland, director of LifeWay Worship.

“Some churches need sheet music for a full rock band each week, while others rely solely on accompaniment tracks. We set out to find a way to help these churches create music that suits their congregations. In doing so, we created a new music technology that does what none other has done before.”

Very similar applications could be used by schools, theaters, local choirs, and so on ... however, I don't know whether the creators of this technology would love to see their product used for some raunchy song by 50Cent.

Three years in development, SongMap was created by a team of software engineers and music industry professionals. It involved the largest known recording project in Nashville history. Nearly 1,000 songs and 8,000 mixes were recorded in just 10 months by over 150 professional musicians, vocalists and engineers. The production team then divided the arrangements into more than 500,000 individual segments. From these segments, the SongMap technology allows users to “map” custom mixes of individual songs.

The cost to map a song ranges from $ 1.49 to $1.99 per part. Once a song is purchased, the user has immediate access to the corresponding MP3 file and sheet music. I am curious to learn how this technology is accepted and how it will develop in the next years. I could imagine a Zazzle or Spreadshirt-kind of business model: Some creative people create new songs to address, e.g., a recent trends, and then share their creation with others in their own online song store. 

Context Information:

• SongMap Website
• Springwise on SongMap
• Earlier Posting on similar offering
• More on customized music
• Mass customization seems to be the concept of the year at US Christian enterprises, as also this news article reports

Embedded Toolkits: Participate in Our Survey on the Next Generation of Configurators in the Automotive Industry

My research group in Aachen is working on a nice project (EMOTIO) on the next generation of customization toolkits. Our idea is to extend the conventional configuration of custom products before you order the product by an embedded solution that would allow you to configure your product while you are using it!

We need your feedback on how you evaluate this idea. There is a short (15 min) survey that presents you some use cases of such an embedded toolkits:

Survey in English language: http://www.embedded-toolkits.com/survey/ (there also is a German language version) (it will take not more than 15 mins to answer).

Funded by the IMP-Project Fund within Germany's "Elite initiative", our project wants to pilot these toolkits and get a better understanding on their acceptance by users.

With our survey, we study this phenomenon in the automobile sector. Cars are rather complex products that include a wide array of features and characteristics. There also is a lot of configuration of cars before you buy it. But in the usage stage, you can just adapt your seats and similar changes. With some future technology, customizing a car while you are using it, however, could go much further!

In general, think of an embedded auto toolkit as a user interface that is supposed to enable drivers to change certain features or vehicle characteristics of their car at any time after the purchase. This idea is based on the assumption that users develop new customer needs during the usage period of a product. By using the product the users realize needs that they did not think about when buying the product. Thus, by the means of an “embedded configurator”, certain design decisions are postponed into the user domain and the fit to market can be improved. You will get the idea from the scenarios presented in the survey, so please participate!

Survey in English language und in Deutscher Version

We will publish a summary of the feedings here! For more information on this project, contact me or Frank Steiner.

Context information:

- Our internal project site with background information on this use case.
- A link to the general project website.

Building a Customer-Centric Organization: IE Executive Education Program

IE Business School's Executive Education Division is one of the world's leading institutions to educate managers on recent business trends. Their Open Enrollment Programs have been ranked no. 5 worldwide according to the Financial Times ranking, May 2008.

Within this scheme, we are offering again our program

Building a Customer-Centric Organization: OUTPERFORMING YOUR COMPETITION IN PROFITABILITY

IE Business School, Madrid, Spain
9, 10 and 11 March 2009. [PDF of Program Brochure]

The program features all three facets of building a truly customer-centric organization:

- Mass Customization and strategic capabilities of offering truly customer-centric offerings
- User innovation and customer co-design
- Relationship marketing

It recently is the only program of its kind worldwide! So register now to participate!

About the content:

Heightened competition is forcing business leaders to recognize that the new foundation for profitability is establishing loyal, long-term customer relationships; to conceive themselves not as a group of products, services, territories, or functions, but as a portfolio of customers; to know how profitable each of their customers or customer segments are, and to understand why; to continuously innovate in order to improve their customer value propositions.

The challenge then arises when trying to manage the organizational complexity that surfaces when trying to implement a truly customer-centric strategy. Organizations must align all aspects of their business with the target customer-value proposition. In order to be successful in implementing a sound customer-centric strategy, everyone in the company needs to make decisions consistent with this strategy.

The program features three core modules:

• Strategic capabilities for customer-centricity, taught by Fabrizio Salvador:  Building a customer-centric organization is appealing but also difficult because it involves profound changes in virtually all the value-adding processes of a firm. Yet the payoff is potentially enormous. This module examines the fundamental capabilities that a company has to develop in order to become more customer-centric, and offers a birds-eye view of the scope and content of the organizational changes associated to customer-centricity. Special attention will be devoted to the issues associated to connecting front-end and back-end areas of the firm for fast and efficient adaptation to customer needs.
• Placing the customer at the center of the innovation process, taught by Frank Piller: A key challenge in new product and service development (NPSD) is to match new designs to customer preferences. The growing heterogeneity of demand, the advent of "long tail markets", exploding product and service complexities and the rise of the creative consumer are making this task more difficult than ever. This module will explore new strategies to navigate NPSD more efficiently by utilizing the firm's periphery for innovation.
• Focusing on the individual customer relationship, taught by Martin Boehm: Delivering what customers' value provides competitive advantage in today's business arena. No matter in which sector it finds itself competing in each company needs to focus on the customer's point of view not only to improve the customer experience, but also to increase the customer's contribution to the business. This module will explore how to determine the value of each individual customer for your business and how to retain the ones that offer the highest value, as well as, switching costs associated with their loss.

For more information, download the program brochure, or head to IE's website. http://www.execed.ie.edu/internationalprograms

IBM Analysis Finds Businesses Recognize Power of Consumers. Move to Leverage Trend for Mass Customization Predicted in 2009

Now is that time of the year where the consultants and analysts publish their trend reports again for the coming year. And as a blogger, you just pick the reports fitting to your understanding :-)  Here is one: The IBM Institute for Business Value, a group of consultants within IBM focused on human capital management, financial management, corporate strategy, supply chain management and CRM, today revealed the results of a consumer survey-based study. They advise their clients to remain focused on understanding and adapting to the needs of today's empowered and informed consumers as a means of differentiation in 2009.

In 2008, the rapid proliferation of mobile devices and rise of social networking have dramatically changed consumer expectations and behaviors and have impacted the future of many industries, the press report says. Consumers are in more control than ever before, and through the use of these tools, can easily rally fellow consumers to demand products and services that are tailored to them and improve their lives.

Further evidence of this growing consumer control point was noted in IBM's Global CEO Study, the largest study of chief executives ever conducted. CEOs pointed specifically to their own customer base as the source of the most important changes they will have to address, as two new and more demanding classes of customers emerged: the 'information omnivore,' and the 'socially-minded' customer.

Overall CEOs are planning a 22 percent increase in investments in the next three years to serve these more sophisticated and demanding customers. CEOs in the U.S., Europe and China indicated they plan an average investment jump of 19 percent at these targeted customers over the next three years.

"Consumers are becoming 'producers,' often creating entertainment and advertising content for their peers while demanding flexibility and responsiveness from companies with whom they choose to do business. These customers are more demanding; however, the majority of CEOs do not see them as a threat, but as an opportunity for differentiation -- based on meeting the heightened expectations of this group, and capitalizing on new market opportunities that will emerge," said Peter Korsten, Global Leader, IBM Institute for Business Value. "Dealing with this new breed of consumer in the midst of a whole new economic environment will play a major role in companies' agendas for the foreseeable future."

So for anyone interested in customer-centric strategies, this is good news: In 2009, our topics still have value beyond (or because of) the general financial crisis.

Context: Read the full press release by IBM with links to the individual studies.

Interview: Frank Piller about Mass Customization and Customer Co-Creation

Reverse order: Interview the interviewer: While rather infrequent, the postings with interviews are the ones getting the most hits in my blog. And I am really enjoying them a lot, as this is where I learn most. But while normally I am asking the questions, Duann Scott, editor of the Ponoko Blog, asked me to switch sides and answer his questions. And so, reprinting from the PONOKO blog, here is what we talked about.

For the full interview, published in two parts, head to blog.ponoko.com: Part 1 and Part 2

Duann Scott: Frank, what brought you to focus on Mass Customization in the first place?

Frank Piller: I first realized the mass customization phenomenon by reading Joe Pine's book as a graduate student working on a paper for my master's degree (in 1993). One year later, I was in New York City, visiting one of the first Levi's stores selling its first version of mass customized jeans. There I thought, "Hey, they are doing it really" and was hooked by the concept. When I continued my education with a Ph.D. in Operations Management, I decided to study mass customization from a management perspective in more detail. After placing the first article on it in the German edition of the Harvard Business review (1996), I also got some great feedback from managers on the topic. Since then, I am continuously working on this topic.

DS: So you have been researching, writing and working in the field of customer co-creation for almost 15 years! What do you see as the greatest advancements or most innovative progressions in your time observing the field?

FP: Over the years, I recognized three cycles of mass customization. This first was in the 1990s when people looked on it as a production technologies, still yery much rooted in the CIM-Thinking that originally lead Alvin Toffler to deliver the first modern description of mass customization in the late 1970s.  During this time, mass customization was very much rooted in business-to-business markets. Machine tool makers like Sandvik from Scandinavia opened the first large scale mass customization businesses.

The second wave happed with the internet revolution (starting in 1998). Finally firms could connect their flexible manufacturing technologies with customers efficiently. This cycle brought us many great examples of mass customization, but also quite some disappointments. Often, start-ups during this time just opened, as you could do it, not as customers needed it. But some great examples of mass customization survived, like NikeID (opened for the only reason as former Nike CEO Phil Knight wanted to "something in the internet", and so they selected mass customization as this promised to cause little channel conflicts with established retailers).

In the following years, the internet-based mass customization offerings matured, and many more followed. The third wave of mass customization is happening now: It is driven by companies like Ponoko, Zazzle, Spreadshirt, Lulu, Shapeways, and many others, which offer design, manufacturing, and retail capacity to everyone. So in this third stage, people are not just customizing to fulfill their own needs, but to create (micro) niche markets and serve them efficiently. Here, I think, we are just at the beginning and will see many more application soon.

DS: What are the most common shared factors in mass customization business models that fail? Is there one thing you would recommend a start up to avoid?

FP: I believe many mass customization start-ups fail for the same reasons other start-ups fail: Lack of financing, inexperienced management, or just bad luck. What I can recommend for mass customization start-ups is, first of all, really decide where your system provides customer value. This may sound simple, but I saw too many start-ups that were build on the promise "when we customize, they will come". Think of BookTailor, a site where users could customize travel guide books. Sounds like a great idea, but when you have to become your own editor of a guide book, you loose the most important value of a good travel guide: To think of the unexpected, to surprise, and to provide input in a situation not planned (say, an entire week of rain). BookTailor considered customization as a value per se. But this is not true. Customization is just the vehicle for customer value, but not its origin.

A second advice is to see whether your mass customization business is scalable once success will come. Often, mass customization is based on large work shops or sample room operations. But when you want to succeed with mass customization, you have to have stable processes for each customer order.

DS: The use of online 'configurator' software seems to currently be the most common format for mass customization, what do you see as the benefits and drawbacks of this model and how do you see this evolving in the future?

FP: Yes, that's correct. It was the broader development of online configurators that made mass customization happens in a larger scale. Have a look at our web-site "http://www.configurator-database.com" for the scale and scope of configurators today.

The core drawback of most configurators, however, is that they are still parameter (option) based. Customers have to make their own decisions out of a list of pre-defined options. This often demands a large number of decisions and also knowledge of the user about the product. While this may be perfect in the business-to-business context where configurators originated, in consumer markets this is not always the best option.

Here, need-based configuration often is better. This means that users have to tell something about her preferences, requirements, or expected outcomes. This input then is transferred by an algorithm into a product configuration. There is a great paper by three scholars that compared the use of a parameter versus need-based configurator for Dell (asking people what graphic card they want versus asking people what games they play). In this paper, the authors clearly find that most users prefer the need-based solution, mimicking the behavior of a good sales person (T. Randall, C. Terwiesch, and K. Ulrich, User design of customized products. Marketing Science, Marketing Science, 26 (2007) 2 (March-April): 268-280). Here, I believe, industry has to invest much more in developing better configuration systems that minimize "mass confusion".

DS: Are there alternatives to mass customization?

FP: Absolutely! I recently see better matching-systems for standard products as a strong alternative to mass customization. Within an assortment (of pre-fabricated products), customer specific choices/options are recommended. Consider My Virtual Model (mvm.com), a matching service for fashion retailers and the appliance industry. MVM enables consumers, either on its own site or on the sites of its clients, to build themselves in a virtual model (an avatar), by selecting different body types, hair styles, face characteristics, etc. Consumers also type in their basic measurements so that the virtual model represents their body measurement. In addition, customers can specify what kind of “fit” they prefer (loose, comfort, tight, etc.) so that the recommendations provided do not only fit the customer in terms of sizes and appearance, but also in terms of how they do feel inside the garment.

When MVM started offering virtual avatars in 1999, they looked more like a curious oddity. But now their avatars are used by more than 12 millions individual users. Companies such as Adidas, Best Buy, Levis, Sears and H&M are using these virtual models to generate business and stronger ties to their customers, lured by the increase in such metrics as average order value and conversion.

DS: Any other example of such a matching service?

FP: Sure. A great example is Zafu.com. Finding the right size of a pair of jeans is a challenge for many women. The answer of mass customization is taking a customer's measurements and making a custom pair of jeans for her. Zafu offers a different approach. From the customer perspective, the experience starts similarly. Zafu asks women shoppers eleven questions about how they prefer jeans to sit on their hips or waist to create a body profile. In addition, they ask for some basic body measurements.

But instead of using this information to create a custom cut, they match it with a large database of proprietary fitting information about the jeans of more than 30 major brands. This database contains hundreds of styles, from broadly marketed Gap to pricey designer labels. The consumer then gets a list of ranked results, linked with the brand's website to purchase.

I predict that we will see many more examples of these matching services as they offer companies to profit better from what they already have: vast assortments of existing goods. The result may be a new understanding of mass customization, beyond its roots in on-demand manufacturing and product design. In the end, it is the customer who drives the business. And customers are not differentiating between personalized, customized, or standardized offerings. I believe that we will need a broader understanding of mass customization. And I am excited to work on this challenge in the coming years.

For the full interview, head to blog.ponoko.com: Part 1 and Part 2

DemandMade launches YERZIES.com, extending apparel customization beyond screen printing by providing users access to advanced manufacturing methods

News from DemandMade and Scott Killian. Scott, together with his business partner Tim Brule, launched Yerzies.com, an online marketplace that "allows anyone to create, purchase or sell their own customized tee shirts, hoodies and other apparel items."  

Sounds familiar? Yes, Zazzle, Spreadshirt, Cafepress, any many more offer the same. But the differences are in the detail.  

Asked how Yerzies is different, Scott answers: "Although other Websites exist that allow you to design a tee shirt, we've dramatically expanded the variety of creative options and developed new approaches to the way users can profit from their creations."

Read an interview with Scott Killian in the next posting in this blog!

Beyond printed tee shirts, Yerzies enables the creation of stitched sweatshirts and mixed-media designs that include many advanced processes to create apparel which more closely resembles the design trends seen at retail. Yerzies' innovative product configurator allows users to access an unprecedented array of creative options including printing on dark garments, metallic foils, flocks, glitters, glow-in-the-dark materials, and stitched processes.

Buyers are also invited to "Make it Yerz", a feature that allows users to mix and match product options and in some cases, even make modifications to the content created by other users. Yerzies has also reengineered the way user-generated content is marketed.

When users are finished, they can purchase as little as one piece or sell their creations to the Yerzies community and keep the profits. All products are produced on-demand.

Yerzies thus combines advanced new manufacturing techniques with an innovative approach to crowd sourcing. It is another example of the developing trend of user manufacturing and my hypothesis that users are getting more and more advanced manufacturing technology in their hands.

In addition to providing a platform for user-generated content, Yerzies has also licensed content from third-parties including typefaces from designers such as Ray Larabie which users can incorporate into their designs.

Scott: "Helvetica and Times Roman might work nicely for writing a novel, but they don't necessarily look great on a hooded sweatshirt. We've licensed trend-right typefaces that will actually look cool on a tee shirt or hoodie."

The story behind Yerzies: An interview with Scott Killian.

Personal Fabrication for Dummies -- Teaching Videos at Replicator, Inc.

I just discovered the great new blog by Joseph Flaherty, founder of a start-up called Replicator, Inc. While the company will launch in full speed in February 2009, they already were quite successful in securing seed money and attention in a number of important start-up competitions (MIT 100K  (semi-finals), Princeton (semi-finals), and the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition (runner up prize winner)).

I hope that we can meet Joseph at the MIT Smart Customization Seminar in three weeks.

Replicator, Inc., manufactures and sells custom consumer products. Their first product is custom jewelry for tween and teenage girls, sold under the name WhirlyBelle. This is made possible by combining web-based design tools with custom manufacturing

His company blog not just has a recent posting about 47 words you can not use on custom Nike sneakers (which I do not quote here to get my blog not banned from your corporate content filter). In another posting, he has a great chart about the price premiums you can gain with mass customization:

A great number of postings covers user manufacturing and the new opportunities for users to produce anything they want. In one of my favorite posts, Joseph explains all technologies that enable personal fabrication. You probably also could Google those, but Joseph created a great posting with small videos explaining all technologies.

Many people think 3D printers are the way this will happen, but there are half a dozen other amazing technologies that allow people to make anything they can imagine.

While by no means an exhaustive list, his list is a is a very convenient overview for anyone interested in how the idea user co-design meets manufacturing. As Joseph writes:

"Combined with web-based design tools these technologies could enable a change as profound as the industrial revolution: increasing the options for customers while reducing the environmental impact."

His posting shows examples of these machines in action and provides a glimpse of what is possible already today:

1. 3D Printers (some notable examples: Z Corp., Dimension, 3d systems, Objet, Desktop Factory, Paragon Lake, Figure Prints, EOS)

2. Laser Cutters  (Notable Examples: Epilog, Trotec, Etchstar, Ponoko, VersaLaser)

3. Waterjet Cutters (Notable Examples: OMAX, Flow Corp, OCC)

4. 2D Plotter Cutters (Notable Examples: Cricut, CraftRobo, Xyron)

5. Print on Demand (Notable Companies: Blurb, Lulu, Shutterfly)

6. Direct To Garment Printing (Notable Companies: Cafe Press, Zazzle, Spreadshirt, Spoonflower)

7. CNC Milling (Notable Examples: eMachine Shop, Tech Shop, Craftsman Compucarve)

8. CNC Embroidery (Notable Examples: Singer, Brother, Toyota)

9. Cut & Sew Construction (Notable Examples: NIKEiD, Timbuk2, Freitag)

10. 3D Scanning (Notable Examples: Z Corp., Next Engine, 3D Digital Corp., Corpus-e)

Go to his web site to watch all videos

Hard Copies: New Open Designs by Ronen Kadushin

An exhibition at Appel Design Gallery, Berlin 1-22 Nov. 2008 -- and an invitation to download all design and place it on your local CNC machine.

Now we have Ponoko, eMachineshop, JuJups, Shapedays, etc to produce what ever come to our mind in an easy way. But still, at least I don't have every day a nice idea for a great coffee table in my mind.

This is where Ronen Kadushin comes in. I wrote about this Berlin-based designer before. Ronen's idea is to publish all his designs under a CC Creative Commons license( by-nc-sa). So whenever you have access to a CNC cutting facility, you can get his designs:

As Ronen describes: 

"Open Design products flow with an essential cultural wave: towards freer information, Web-based collaborations and open-source methods. In Open Design anyone can download and produce my designs for free. Open Designs encourage modification, redistribution, and direct contact with the designer. I would only ask producers to share with me revenues from commercial uses. This means that with no tooling investment, you can produce Open Design products independently."

All object rely on a very clever 2D digital start point, which makes them easy to alter into new shapes and uses, and they are flat packed. “Hard copies” of the designs can be ordered from any CNC cutting facility that’s local to you, your consumers, or distributors. Ronen's idea is that designs that typically live only a few years in the marketplace can live on and develop.

Still, at the same time, Ronen needs to earn some money. Generating fame and buzz and getting his name out is one of the intentions of the Open Design project. But he also produces some of his collections in high quality and exhibits (and sells) them in an annual exhibition at a Gallery in Berlin.

He says about his new exhibition: 

"This Open Design collection of lighting and furniture limited editions is playing a double role. As gallery pieces, they express my personal style: simple, effortless and humorous. But they also relate to wider cultural issues and offer a designer an alternative course to consumer products, especially relevant in economically troubled times.

There is a feeling about Open Design I would like to convey. Making products this way is, for me, mind clearing and fun. You can feel as good about the Open Design production process, its low environmental footprint, and what it stands for, as you do about the objects themselves."

Context information:
- Freely download the Open Designs and more from www.ronen-kadushin.com
- Order them at Appel Design Gallery, Berlin, www.appel-design.com

Exhibition at:
Appel Design Gallery
Torstr. 114, 10119 Berlin, Germany
phone: +49 (0)30 32 51 81 60
info@appel-design.com

The Top 20 of Mass Customization: A closer view on the agenda of the MIT Smart Customization Seminar

The upcoming Smart Customization Seminar at MIT will gather a great group of individuals representing some of the most advanced and interesting businesses in mass customization today. The seminar is targeting executives in the mass customization market and companies interested in launching a mass customization business or applying some of its principles to boost an established business.

Here is a more detailed look on the program with some comments. Participate at this unique event and register today!

For the full program, go the the seminar's web site at MIT.

---

MONDAY, NOV 10, 2008 (starting at 2pm)

---

Introduction & opening addresses: Frank Piller & B. Joseph Pine II, MIT Smart Customization Group: Joe Pine and I will start the seminar with two short keynotes highlighting key aspects of matters today in mass customization. We also want to provide a framework how to navigate the two days during the seminar.

Mass Customization Leaders: Adidas, Alison Page, Director, Mass Customization: Adidas' mass customization offering mi adidas is the premier example of custom sports wear since 2001, combining customization in all three dimensions: fit, style, and functionality (performance). Alison Page will talk about the learning of establishing the customization business unit within a global corporation.

Mass Customization Leaders: Business-to-Business Leader
We are talking to one of the most advaced examples of BtoB customization. Come back to see who will be speaking in this slot.

Mass Customization Next Generation: Spreadshirt, Inc. Jana Eggers, CEO
Spreadshirt represents a new breed of mass customization, combining personal creativity with the power of the social web. Spreadshirt has recently made it into the Top 5 European Growth list "Europe's 500". CEO Jana Eggers will share her experiences with leading a major customization brand, connecting average consumers, artists and corporations like Samsung, Coca Cola, or Chuck Norris.

Open Space discussion: Defining your mass customization strategy
Meet with a smaller group of peers to discuss your mass customization challenges and experiences. Groups will be facilitated by a leading professor in the field, providing also first-hand insight into the latest research to master your challenges.

Reception and networking dinner in the MIT Faculty Club

---

Tuesday, NOV 11, 2008

---

Opening address: William Mitchell, MIT Smart Customization Group, is a Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences at MIT and directs the Media Lab's Smart Cities research group. Before coming to MIT, he was Professor of Architecture and Director of the Master in Design Studies Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He also taught at Yale, UCLA, Carnegie-Mellon, and Cambridge Universities. He holds a BArch from the University of Melbourne, MED from Yale University, and MA from Cambridge. He is a recipient of honorary doctorates from the University of Melbourne and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. In 1997 he was awarded the annual Appreciation Prize of the Architectural Institute of Japan for his "achievements in the development of architectural design theory in the information age as well as worldwide promotion of CAD education."Mitchell is currently chair of The National Academies Committee on Information Technology and Creativity.

Mass Customization Leaders: Masters in Configuration, Lars Hvam and Niels Henrik Mortensen, DTU and Co-authors of "Product Customization": Lars Hvam and Niels Henrik Mortensen are co-authors of the 2008 book "Product Customization: Designing Configuration Systems". Configuration is a key capability for mass customization. But setting up a configuration system is a holistic task that demands much more than just dealing with IT. Lars and Niels developed a methodology to implement a configuration system that helped pump manufacturer Grundfos to react on customer orders in 3 minutes instead of 3 days. American Power Conversion (APC), an infrastructure provider for data centers, could reduce its delivery time from 400 to 16 days. Learn from these and other examples how the latest methods for designing modular product architectures and configuration toolkits can improve the efficiency and customer satisfaction in your mass customization business.

Mass Customization Supply Chain Enablers: CustoMax.com, Bas Possen, Founder & CEO: "In general, too little use is made of the advantage, that all people are different." That's the credo of Bas Possen who manages Europe's largest network of retailers for mass customization, combining multiple vendors of custom goods and retailers on one single platform, both online and offline. Bas Possen brings more than a decade of experience in mass customization to the meeting, having established a number of successful companies in the field.

Mass Customization Entrepreneurs: Meet the next generation of mass customization: Following MIT's entrepreneurial spirit, we proudly present some of the best upcoming new ventures in mass customization. Learn from the founders what motivated them to invest in a mass customization business and get the latest insights from their research and experiences.

Paragon Lake just secured more than $7 million of additional financing, demonstrating ist leadership in the custom jewelry industry. Tikatok is an award-winning idea that empowers children to create their own books and get them produced in large or small quantities. MyFactory and Proper Cloth are start-ups of resent MIT Sloan School graduates in the field of custom fashion and apparel. Look for their latest ideas how they want to differentiate their sites in a crowded market. Sole Envie targets to become the first company in the US selling custom made footwear to women with a high design appeal.

All companies will be presented by their founders and CEOs and will provide a great opportunity to learn about what's hot in the customization market today and what market & technology trends are coming up.

Matt Lauzon, Co-Founder & CEO, Paragon Lake (Jewelry)
Sharon Kan, President & CEO, Tikatok, Inc. (Children books)
Sasha Revankar, Founder, MyFactory (Fashion)
Seph Skerritt, Founder, Proper Cloth (Shirts)
Monika Desai, Founder, Sole Envie (Women's footwear)

Mass Customization Integrators: Zazzle Inside: How Zazzle's infrastructure enabled Keds to offer custom sneakers rapidly, Zazzle, Inc., and Keds Corporation: Zazzle is the only on-demand retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of one-of-a-kind products shipped within 24hours. Users can instantly create, customize to fit their personal style, purchase, and sell a near infinite array of products online. In an exclusive partnership with sportswear icon Keds, the inventor of the "sneaker", Zazzle created its first line of fully customizable sports shoes. The presentation will share the creation of a new customization assortment for Keds.

Mass Customization Leaders: Swarovski: How a leading international brand co-creates products with their customers, tba, Swarovski, Inc. & Johann Fueller, CEO, Hyve AG:  Swarovski is the luxury brand name for crystals around the world. With sales of more than $3 billion, the Swarovski group is one of the largest players in its industry. Still, Swarovski's organization is very customer-centric. Recently, the company explored a number of co-creation and customization initiatives which will be presented in this talk. The co-presenter of this talk will be Johann Fueller, who was responsible for the realization and implementation of several customer co-design toolkits at Swarovski.

Mass Customization Next Generation: Desktop Factory, Inc., Cathy Lewis, CEO: The goal of Desktop Factory is to make 3D printing as common in offices, factories, schools and homes as laser printers are today. Just as laser printers became ubiquitous in the last decade, so too will new uses for 3D printing emerge as devices become inexpensive and widely available. Customization and personalization is the main driver behind this trend. Started in 2004, Desktop Factory is the leading company to build a manufacturing system for each customer for less than $5000.

Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Mass Customization, Ethan Mollick, MIT Sloan School: Some of the world's best configuration toolkits today are not being developed to sell automotives or complex machine tools, but videogames. In his presentation, Ethan Mollick will share the latest insights on configuration toolkit development in this industry and what you can learn from this to develop state-of-the-art toolkits for your business. With David Edery, Ethan Mollick is the co-author of "Changing the Game: How Videogames are Transforming the Business World" (2008, Pearson Education/Financial Times Press).

Mass Customization Next Generation: i-Fashion: The Future of Personalization Today. Chang Kyu Park, Director, i-Fashion Technology Center, Korea and Yongsoo Park, CEO, i-Omni Co. Ltd., Korea: Virtual representations of products and customers are a key capacity of successful mass customization & personalization. They match customers' preferences to products and configurations. The i-Fashion Consortium in Korea operates one of the world's most advanced set-ups of virtual reality. Using virtual models based on an Intellifit body scan, consumers get personalized recommendations of products they may like. At the same time, vendors' efficiency increases due to the virtual -- and not physical -- representation of products for most stages of the value chain. Chang Kyu Park will discuss present achievements if i-Fashion and provide recommendations on using virtual models in your organization.

Open Space discussion: Implementing Mass Customization: Meet with a smaller group of peers to discuss your mass customization challenges and experiences. Groups will be facilitated by a leading professor in the field, providing also first-hand insight into the latest research to master your challenges.

Closing comments by Frank Piller & B. Joseph Pine II, MIT Smart Customization Group

For the full program and registration, go the the seminar's web site at MIT.

Fancy Feet Custom Shoes: Update on Keds/Zazzle Custom Footwear

Last month, I reported about the cooperation of Keds and Zazzle that brought custom sneakers to a new level. Now, there is a first user-generated mashup-up of this offering. Check the website of Fancy Feet.

Here, a user programmed a few very easy, but nice, templates to customize sneakers with names and monograms. To fulfill his orders, the site entirely relies on Zazzle and its cooperation with Keds to manufacture the shoes.

This is a great example of the next generation of mass customization: A user utilizes a design and manufacturing infrastructure to create a new business.

By the way: Keds and Zazzle will share their experiences on the upcoming MIT Smart Customization Seminar in November at the MIT Faculty Club in Cambridge, MA. Click here for more information.

MIT Seminar on Mass Customization - Meet the Thoughtleaders in the Field

MIT Faculty Club, MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA, November 10-11, 2008

Another event ... but one that we believe will matter and create value: We are inaugurating the MIT Annual Smart Customization Seminar. Its foremost idea is to connect managers in peer-to-peer interaction to foster an intense discussion, facilitated by presentations from industry leaders and the Smart Customization Group faculty. The seminar's core faculty consists of Mass Customization guru B. Joseph Pine II, MIT Design Lab Director William Mitchell, and myself (Frank Piller).

The seminar provides a unique opportunity everyone working on, implementing, or considering mass customization and personalization strategies and technologies (note: it is organized in the style of the MIT Executive Education, so there are no student discounts, etc.).

The MIT Smart Customization Seminar is the only event of its kind in North America and provides an in-depth coverage of one of today's most important business trends. The objective of the 2008 seminar is to take an intensive look on the success factors and "how to do it” aspects of mass customization and personalization.

For more information, the preliminary agenda, and registration please refer to the agenda in the attachment and our seminar web site: http://stellar.mit.edu/S/project/smartcustomization/

Space in the seminar is limited, so reserve your seat today, and also enjoy the early registration discount until October 24, 2008.

Archetype Solutions Launches Indi. New Custom Apparel Company Supplements their BtoB and Consumer Offerings

Indi is the newest spin-off of Archetype Solutions, a company known to many insiders in the field of customized apparel as a premier enabler of mass customization for large fashion brands. Archetype Solutions has spent years studying human bodies and fit to develop an innovative technology that enables the company to determine an individual’s body shape and create a unique pattern to fit their shape. Previously, they used this capability in a BtoB environment to enable fashion brands to create an own mass customization offering.

 In a first business-to-consumer venture, Zafu.com, Archetype then utilized their knowledge to provide an innovative matching service for jeans (see my earlier posting on Zafu, one of the most innovative companies in the customization & personalization domain).

Now they went one step further by founding a custom apparel company, indi, based in Emeryville, California, just across the Bay from San Francisco.

indi enables customers to create apparel which reflects their individual style and preferences. In the moment, indi markets and sells its custom apparel under two brands addressing two of the most common customized products in the apparel segment: indiDenim provides custom jeans for women and men, and indiTailored custom dress shirts for men. All apparel is made using Archteype's proprietary fit technology. Both customization offers went live during the last week.

Configurator and co-design process

Both the jeans and the shirt offering are based on a good, state-of-the art configurator. However, nothing new and noteworthy here, both toolkits are designed to make their job simple and with less complexity for the consumer. What differentiates the two offerings from their competition is the scope of customization offerings, and, hopefully, the better fit due to Archetype's long experience in the field.

Shirts begin at an affordable $79, custom jeans are starting at $130, so the price point of mass customization is truly met. What I liked is the strong focus on customer satisfaction: indi guarantees each and every order. Customers not completely satisfied can return garments for a full refund.

Denims are produced in a dedicated high-tech factory in Mexico, and shirts in Honduras.

Closing the learning cycle of mass customization

The company also offers an innovative reorder option that allows a customer of shirt to refine the fit of their garment by making adjustments to the neck, sleeve, arm, cuff and body length. These adjustments are used to alter the customer’s unique pattern which indiTailored keeps on file, so the customer can always find a new customized fit in more fabrics and styles (the selection of fabrics for the shirts is very limited in the moment):

 "One thing that is quite innovative about our technology is the ability for a customer to make fit adjustments to a garment that they have received.", CEO Marybeth Luber explains. "We recognize that fit is a very personal thing and sometimes we do not nail it on the first attempt.  Our “re-order” process allows a customer to tweak the fit of their pattern – say take the waist in an inch or lengthen the inseam.

 We, then, make the garment and store that pattern on the customer’s file for future orders.  With indi Wholesale, we are looking to partner with boutiques to carry standard size indi garments while also offering the custom ordering process.  So many people try things on and wish they could change one or two things about the garment.  This model enables this. "

 This is an old, but very powerful idea of mass customization finally in place!

 indi CEO Marybeth Luber on what's coming next

 I met indi CEO Marybeth Luber on the MCPC 2007 conference where she already mentioned the start-up. She is a former banker turned apparel executive, and joined Archetype Solutions in 2004 and took the helm in 2007. She has since been steering the company toward its vision of introducing a portfolio of brands leveraging the company’s custom technology.

 In an e-mail conversation, I asked her what's next to expect from Archetype and indi. She told me that the company intends to expand the portfolio of products available for customers. Next for indiTailored will be a fashion style with more contemporary fabrics and expanded customization options. And there will be even more, as Marybeth explains.

 "Next up for us is a low rise jean for men to add to the men’s Potrero Classic and Relaxed fits we currently offer.  We have design-your-own denim jackets in the works for women where women will get to choose details such as pockets, finishing, embroidery and screen-printing. Additionally, we absolutely need to expand our size range to cover Plus and Big&Tall.  This is important to us, because we want to offer garments for all consumers.  These sizes require different fit blocks so it is also in the pipeline of future product rollout."

One further idea will be a wholesale business for indi that the company considers to be quite compelling for bringing mass customization for apparel to retail (http://www.indidenim.com/wholesale/).

The wholesale program enables a retail partner to choose the fabrics, styles and sizes that are best suited for their store's clientele. And if customers still can't find what they're looking for, retailers can place custom orders for them. What I found very innovative is the option for retailers to create their own designs, choosing from the hundreds of custom style options. This utilizes the customization options of indi even further, offering retailers the opportunity to create their own assortment.

 Marybeth Luber: "Of course, our B2B business [with Archtetype] continues to be very important to us.  We have positioned indi in a slightly more premium space and offer an expanded selection of styles and options with higher price points so we are not in direct competition with our B2B business.  Many consumers still do not know the option for affordable custom clothing exists so we think anything we do to further develop this market is good for all of us.  We also hope to pursue the B2B model with indi by partnering with 3rd party distribution channels.  We currently have one such partnership in the works."

 I also asked here how indi relates to Zafu. Are there any connections internally between Zafu und indiDenim?

 "We spun off the zafu business last year," Marybeth Luber told me, "and the two companies now run autonomously.  We do, however, have indi jeans featured on zafu, and indi is definitely a good option for zafu users when zafu is unable to recommend many brands that are available in the marketplace."

 Cooperation between indiDemin and Intellifit  

indiDenim also will cooperate with Intellifit to gather body measurements in a high-tech store environment. Tests are in its way in the moment.

Intellifit currently markets a patented 3D full body scanner that accurately takes over 200 body measurements of a fully clothed person in under 15 seconds (see my earlier posting). At a Custom Jeans Center, the customer enters a see-through Intellifit Virtual Fitting Room measuring 8 feet high and 7 feet wide.  Low-power radio waves collect numerous, accurate body measurements of the customer over a period of 20 seconds. Customers don't have to undress for this technology.

The customer then designs their pair of jeans online at the indiDenim site, choosing from a selection of styles and washes, and specifying details such as pocket shape and design, stitching and personalization options. 

 The two initial centers are located at each company’s respective locations, just outside of Philadelphia and San Francisco.  Using Intellifit’s and indi’s technologies, the centers enable consumers to design their own custom-made jeans in-person with a guarantee of a precise fit.

The marketplace

In a study by consumer research group Mintel, quoted in a press release by archetype, the overwhelming demand for custom jeans is confirmed. The 2007 jeans market reached $16.7 billion, a 5.4% growth over the previous year. Prior to that, in 2006, the jeans market experienced a 7.9% growth. This wardrobe staple is often the most challenging clothing item to find, and fit remains the primary concern for jeans buyers. In the Mintel study, more than half of respondents (56%) reported “it is very difficult to find a pair that fits properly,” while a third of jeans buyers (33%) said that “sizes vary too much.”

indiDenim’s customization eliminates the fit issue, as each jean is custom tailored to each customer’s size and shape. indiDenim’s innovative technology enables size and style combinations that would otherwise require millions of SKUs and be impossible for a traditional retailer to offer, Marybeth explains. "Our ability to customize the fit while offering extensive style variations such as fabric, rise and leg style cannot be replicated by a traditional retailer given constraints on inventory that typically limit the style and size selection.  Previously, consumers could spend days shopping for their perfect pair of jeans, which they can now create in minutes at a Custom Jeans Center."  Or today on the internet.

Guest Article: Mass customization of musical instruments (in German language)

It has been a long time that I posted to this blog more than an event announcement – life as a German university professor keeps you really busy during the semester. But to keep up postings running, I got help from some members of our mass customization community.

In a first guest article, Jan Palkoska comments on a field not covered n the previous discussion of mass customization: the customization of musical instruments. Jan wrote his master's thesis on this topic, focusing on the customization process of drums. As he finds, customization is the predominant pattern in this industry, but the execution of mass customization principles is often just at the beginning. Often, craft customization dominates. Reading his thesis, I was reminded at the bicycle industry, where also many mid- and high-end bikes are being customized in form of craft customization in retail.

His article is in German language, but you may let Google translate the text, or just jump to the end of the text where you will find a number of examples for offerings of custom drums in English.

For more information, contact Jan Palkoska at janpalkoska@gmx.de

Vermarktung individualisierter Musikinstrumente – Ein Vergleich verschiedener Angebote in der Schlagzeugindustrie. Von Jan Palkoska.

Musikinstrumente erscheinen auf den ersten Blick relativ ungeeignet für Individualisierungsbemühungen: So kommen Umsetzungen individueller Vorstellungen bei Instrumenten einer klassischen Orchesterbesetzung schon von daher kaum vor, da sich in den meisten Fällen – etwa Streich- oder Blasinstrumenten – eine traditionelle Bauform zugunsten eines optimalen Klangerlebnisses bewährt und allgemein durchgesetzt hat. Durchaus denkbar sind persönliche Anpassungen oder Einstellungen in Einzelfällen; diese betreffen aber nicht die grundsätzliche Konstruktion, und auch ästhetische Veränderungen, obwohl dies durchaus denkbar wäre, sind insgesamt unüblich – abgesehen von wirtschaftlich nicht nennenswerten Zuwendungen, die dem Einzelkünstler den Acrylglasflügel nicht entbehren lassen.

Außerhalb des klassischen Bereichs hält die instrumentelle Welt aber durchaus zahlreiche Vertreter vor, welche zur Umsetzung persönlicher Wünsche geradezu einladen, vor allem nämlich diejenigen, welche der Konfiguration bedürfen und je nach Bauweise einen höchst individuellen Klang und extravagante Erscheinungsbilder zu lassen: zum Beispiel Schlagzeuge.

Drummers of today are spoiled by the plethora of custom made drums (nearly equaling the number of production drums).

Wie dieses Zitat von Falzerano (1994) aus dem Jahre 1994 zeigt, haben die Hersteller von Schlagzeugen recht früh die Vorteile kundenindividueller Produkte erkannt und sie entsprechend vermarktet.

Auf der NAMM Show 2008, der Messe für Musikinstrumente in den USA, waren von einundvierzig Schlagzeug-Ausstellern lediglich siebzehn als reine Serienfertiger zu bewerten; während die Präsenz existierender Serienhersteller auf der Messe nahezu komplett war, ist davon auszugehen, dass die vertretenen Customizer im Vergleich zu weiteren Customizern die deutlich kleinere Gruppe war: bereits im Internet sind weitere achtzig bis neunzig Unternehmen vertreten.

Zwar sind die meisten dieser Firmen kleine Handwerksbetriebe, doch auch sie vermarkten ihre Produkte global und genießen unter Musikern ein hohes Ansehen. Trotz kleinerer Firmenstrukturen bedienen sich diese Hersteller zunehmend typischer Mass Customization Tools, allen voran Konfiguratoren. Dadurch wird auch die Einteilung in kleine Handwerksbetriebe oder größere Mass Customizer mehr und mehr obsolet, wobei selbst die Mitarbeiterzahl und die Ausbringungsmenge nicht unbedingt aussagekräftig sind.

Tatsache ist, dass Customizing in der Schlagzeugindustrie zum Schlüsselbegriff geworden ist. Der von vielen Firmen erhoffte Differenzierungsvorteil durch kundenindividuelle Produkte ist dementsprechend vor allem hinsichtlich der Vermarktung fraglich, da die große Mehrheit aller Anbieter kundenindividuelle Produkte im Leistungsprogramm führt, ständig neue, wenn auch kleine, Customizing-Betriebe entstehen und nicht zuletzt auch der Begriff Customizing inflationär und nicht immer im zutreffenden Sinne zu Vermarktungszwecken verwendet wird.

Eine Marke soll mit den sich verändernden Ansprüchen des Nutzers wachsen können, weshalb eine Anpassungsmöglichkeit des Instruments unbedingt erfordert. Um, trotz der weiten Verbreitung dieser Mechanismen, durch Customizing dennoch ihre Marken abgrenzen zu können und nicht gerade durch vermeintliche Individualität zum gesichtslosen Produkt zu werden, platzieren sich Firmen in der Schlagzeugbranche heute durch den Grad der Individualisierung. Dieser ergibt sich aus den jeweiligen Kompetenzen und Möglichkeiten, so dass die Konstituierung einer Markenidentität zunehmend durch die Vermarktung intangibler Leistungshorizonte angestrebt wird.

Während also beispielsweise das kalifornische Unternehmen Orange County Drum & Percussion die außergewöhnlichsten Designwünsche der Kunden zu ermöglichen versucht, bietet der japanische Hersteller Pearl die Umsetzung kundenindividueller Klangcharakteristika durch unterschiedliche Trommelkesselkompositionen an. Andere Firmen wiederum spezialisieren sich durch die Verwendung unkonventioneller Grundmaterialien  – wie es bei RCI Starlite der Fall ist (Acryl), nach stilistischen Orientierungen – etwa bei San Francisco Drum Co. (Vintage Fokus), oder gar durch „special effects“ – von tmd customs (illuminierte Instrumente).

Auch die Art des Kundenservices unterscheidet sich teilweise massiv. Während bei einigen Herstellern Produktkonfiguratoren Verwendung finden, ermöglicht Phattie Drums dem Kunden den persönlichen Kontakt zu den einzelnen Handwerken. So können sogar hochspezielle, oft nur schwer verbalisierbare Wünsche gemeinsam umgesetzt werden. Entsprechend siedeln sich solche Produkte preislich im High End Bereich an und stellen somit eigentlich keine realistische Konkurrenz zu Herstellern von Serienprodukten dar.

Eine innovative Option bietet das traditionsreiche deutsche Unternehmen Sonor, welches ein Mass Customization Konzept geschaffen hat, bei dem der Kunde sowohl die Vorteile der Serienproduktion, als auch gleichzeitig Optionen des Customizings nutzen kann. Vorkonfigurierten Serienprodukte können durch Möglichkeiten des Customizing Konzepts SQ² individuell ergänzt werden und tragen so dem „share of wallet“-Gedanken Rechnung. Dabei sind auch vollständig individuell zusammengestellte Drum-kits innerhalb gegebener Möglichkeiten denkbar, wobei ein positiver Kosteneffekt vor allem durch die Synergie von Serien- und individuellen Produkten entsteht.

A selection of mass customization offerings in the drum industry

dw drums (www.dwdrums.com):  At DW, we're famous for building custom kits. Exotic woods from around the globe, sonically diverse shell configurations, hot-rodded Graphics lacquer finishes, four distinct drum hardware color choices and so much more. It's all about expressing your own personal style behind the kit and on it. (Customizing since 1990)

Orange County Drum & Percussion (www.ocdrum.com):  One of the things that makes OCDP different from other companies is the options and the finishes. […]This does nothing for the sound of the drum, but it gives the drum a more custom look which some people prefer. (1991)

Pearl (www.pearldrums.com): Masterworks is about choices for the discriminating drummer. Choices like North American Maple, Scandinavian Birch and African Mahogany. Three highly prized woods for shell composition, not just the same shell everyone else custom paints. […] With Masterworks, your kit sounds like your kit. (2003).

Phattie Drums (www.phattiedrums.com): Beyond Custom [...] Now you can work with a member of our staff to design your own Sounds Like Art snare. Our wood experts will help pick a wood that meets your sonic requirements while our artists turn your ideas into 3D designs carved into the shell. You also have the option of custom hardware, working with our artists to create a lug that compliments your shell design while maintaining functionality. (2001).

Pork Pie Drums www.porkpiedrums.com: Whether recorded or live, the difference in your sound will be a custom Pork Pie™ Snare. Hearing is believing! Our Snare Drums are available in an almost limitless choice of Custom Lacquers, Stains and Wraps. (1987)

RCI Starlite www.rcidrums.com: All of our RCI acrylic shells are made from a specialty formulated hardened performance polymer made in the USA exclusively for RCI. These are true All American manufactured products made in America by Americans. [...] It’s impossible to list all the infinite patterns and color combinations that we create due to the fact we are a total custom shop. Whether you are a top manufacturer in the industry, a boutique drum manufacturer or an individual looking to create your dream set RCI deals directly with a personalized service.

San Francisco Drum Co. www.sfdrumco.com: At San Francisco Drum Co, we believe in combining the classic design approach from yesteryear with today's modern materials, construction methods, and components. (2004)

SHINE Custom Drums & Percussion www.shinedrums.com: What makes a custom drum company successful in the very crowded "custom drums business" these days? We believe the answer to this question is quite simple...offer a product that is reliable, better built than your competitors and give artists and customers the kind of treatment you would give to your family or close friends. It seems like a simple concept yet it is why Shine Drums is the fastest growing and most sought after custom drum manufacturer in the world today. (2004)

SJC custom drums www.sjcdrums.com: Design your dream. (2000)

SONOR (www.sonor.com): SQ2 is more than a new drum series. It is an entirely new concept both of making drums and selecting drums. With an almost unlimited variety of shell - size - finish combinations SQ2 is the most individual drum we have ever made and the most unique one you have ever dreamed of playing. It will let you speak with your personal musical voice. It is your signature in sound. (1993)

tmdcustoms www.tmdcustomdrums.com: Ceelite is a new technology that allows flat, flexible light to be formed around the shell of any drum and is available through TMD Customs. This will bring a new dimension to what was thought to be a stale market. With every company offering custom designs, TMD Customs brings you the new wave in drum finishing that you will not be able to find anywhere else. Ceelite allows you to illuminate your entire drumkit with the touch of a button or by simply hitting the drum by using the optional trigger mount creating the first ever lit drum show. (2005)

Conference invitation: 3rd International Conference on Rapid Manufacturing (RM) to be held at Loughborough University on July 9 and 10

Rapid Manufacturing, also know as direct, digital, generative manufacture or additive fabrication, is one of the most exciting emergent technologies available to mass customize today. RM uses 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) data to directly 'print' or 'grow' parts in a variety of polymeric, metallic, ceramic and organic materials. When fully implemented, it allows almost unlimited variety at no extra variable cost. Old paradigms of optimizing between switching and inventory cost will go away. While the potential of these technologies have been discussed since years, only very recently a larger scale of commercial application has begun.

The most exciting application of rapid manufacturing, in my perspective, is its enabling role for user manufacturing (previous postings on the topic). A new generation of rather cheap machines is coming to the market now promise to replicate the development we had in the printing industry: Form large printing presses to large laser printing systems to the desktop printer. The same may happen to manufacturing. From large centralized factories to decentralized plants to a factory on your desk.

The International Conference on Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is the world's only conferences focused on this trend. Organized by some core members of our mass customization community, the Rapid Manufacturing Group at Loughborough University in the UK, the conference focuses solely on the application of 'end use parts', made using additive layer manufacturing technologies.

The past events have been attended by over 150 delegates and speakers from around the world. The event provides a two day showcase of invited speakers, including the very best in both academic RM research activity and commercial RM applications. The event also plays host to a parallel technology and materials exhibition supported by leading RM systems vendors exclusively for conference delegates.

The program is divided in an academic and a business stream. Topics presented in the business track include:

- Developing a business case for customized RM
- RM for the home based market
- Ultrasonic Consolidation
- Developing intellectual property in RM product
- Pushing the boundaries of RM consumer products
- The socio-economic benefits of RM
- DMLS for high performance RM applications
- Quality management in RM using non destructive testing

The conference further will cover process and materials issues, design opportunities, management and organizational issues and industrial applications, making the conference of relevance to engineers, designers and business managers, as well as academics and researchers and RM materials and system developers.

For more information, registration, and the full program, please go to http://www.rm-conference.com/index.htm

Ultimate Customization: Design and Deliver - a new project that examines the next era of mass customization

A guest article by Daniel Eyers from the Cardiff University Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (CUIMRC). CUIMRC is a new center at Cardiff University in the UK. In this post, Daniel describes about the mission and research at this center.

Imagine the opportunities that exist when the freedom of design opportunities afforded by Mass Customisation can be realised using innovative Rapid Manufacturing technologies, where one-off custom manufacturing is the norm, not the exception. As these technologies mature and become increasingly accessible to end-users, will this enablement of Mass Customisation be achievable? If so, what will be the effects of customised demand for business when compared to traditional Mass Production?

Cardiff University Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (CUIMRC), funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council, is the UK’s leading research centre in the field of sustainable manufacturing R&D. Ultimate Customisation: Design & Deliver is a new project that examines the concept of Ultimate Customisation, the next era of Mass Customisation. Ultimate Customisation will involve much greater personalisation, where customers actively take part as co-designers and thus contribute to the value creation. The project aims to understand the viability of Ultimate Customisation using advanced manufacturing technologies such as those associated with Rapid Manufacturing. In this project we explore the possible implications of Rapid Manufacturing within a consumer facing environment, challenging traditional mass customisation production economics and disrupting existing commercial logistics, distribution and marketing paradigms.

Our previous consideration for Mass Customisation of logistics (through the McCLOSM study) demonstrated the implications for businesses in customising both logistics and manufacturing, and now that this project approaches its conclusion, the Ultimate Customisation: Design & Deliver project will continue to examine the implications of Rapid Manufacturing technology.

Considering the current status of knowledge, we have found that extensive literature exists for Mass Customisation, and separately, Rapid Manufacturing. However, as a result of rising individualism of consumer demand together with the technological improvement of Rapid Manufacturing, we believe these concepts will increasingly be implemented together in the short term. Despite numerous companies actively engaged in this field, as yet the body of knowledge analysing the overall topic has as yet received little research attention.

As a research centre, CUIMRC aims to help industry through creating greater understanding of the complex interrelationship between economics and environmental and social factors in developing a truly sustainable business. Our approach to research is to actively engage closely with our research partners and their associated supply chains in order to get an impartial, first hand viewpoint of their particular situation, while also allowing us to maximise the relevance and usefulness of our research outputs. Industrial secondments in which our researchers spend time embedded within host organisations have proven an extremely useful mechanism in this respect. We engage with stakeholders on several other levels, ranging from their participation in surveys and focus groups through to collaborative partnerships on individual projects and strategic input to the consortium through representation on our Steering Group.

The Ultimate Customisation project involves a number of collaborative industrial partners embarking on Rapid Manufacturing-Enabled Mass Customised production and through case studies and modelling approaches, we are exploring both demand and supply management implications arising from Mass Customisation. For the organisations involved in the project, our research aims to provide a clear understanding of both their present and prospective supply chains through ‘what-if’ simulations of futuristic business models for Ultimate Customisation. Additionally, from these assessments we can also assist in the optimisation of processes to directly benefit their business. The collaborative partners represent a cross section of industry, including highly experienced designers and manufacturers with capabilities both for rapid manufacture of customised products and traditional mass production.

During our research we anticipate making a number of Ultimate Customisation publications based on our research findings, many of which will be linked to our industrial collaboration. A warm invitation is extended to any individuals or organisations wishing to become involved with the research or receive project updates/dissemination information to register their interest with us.

Contact for more information Daniel Eyers (eyersDR@cf.ac.uk) or Hartanto Wong (wongH@cf.ac.uk).

Un-Readymades: From Object to Experience. A study of mass customization from the perspective of industrial design

Interview with Martin Konrad Gloeckle, NYC, on consumer co-design and his series of "un-readymade" designs, a great interpretation of the customization trend

When I saw these pictures, I was fascinated immediately ... Martin Konrad Gloeckle, an Industrial Designer currently based in New York City, created some wonderful designs that are one of the best interpretations of the customization trend I ever saw. His designs are part of a study where he discusses the customization trend from the perspective of industrial design.

Born and raised in Germany, Martin relocated to the US in 1996, and recently finished his Master’s Degree in Industrial Design at the Pratt Institute in New York. Martin has additional degrees in Computer Science and Business Administration, and before returning to school had a successful career working for leading web and interactive advertising agencies both in Germany and the US. Martin’s design work has been featured in exhibitions, design blogs and magazines including New York Magazine, his award-winning Bendino lamp is currently produced and distributed in Europe.

Martin is the author of "Un-Readymades: From object to experience" – a study of mass customization from the perspective of industrial design. In this work, Martin has analyzed how consumers are moving away from being passive consumers to actively influencing and shaping their world. Parallel to this, consumers are increasingly looking for improved experiences, involvement, and personal expression. In return, user-generated content or the Do-It-Yourself movement are booming.

But how should product design react on this? Martin finds that up to today, most designers have not reacted on this trend and still are just focusing on providing ready-made, fixed and stable products. He also finds that conventional mass customization systems still do not provide a full user experience or often require advanced knowledge or tools.

In his study, he explores the next levels in this field. Based on research and design explorations, it proposes a framework for product design that engages the user and allows for deeper experience and involvement. It provokes a rethinking of the products we use and interact with on a daily basis, and presents several designs based on this.

In a recent interview, we spoke about his work and how he developed his design.

Martin, what is the key element of the design framework you propose to engage consumers deeper into experiences?

Well, the proposed framework actually has six major principles. However, these are based on two key points: A) Create design opportunities for the user, and B) Use a low-tech approach.

Let me start with the first point: What we can observe today in the online or two-dimensional world are increasingly active, involved, and creative consumers. This includes things like the so-called ‘user generated content’ of blogs, YouTube, Wikipedia and so on, as well as the whole field of desktop publishing, desktop video, desktop music etc. However, when it comes to the world of three-dimensional products, there is very little happening at this point. There are simply very limited opportunities available to the consumer.
The series of products I created tries to address this. Called ‘Un-readymades’ to express the involvement of the end-users, they provide consumers with opportunities to design, create, and express themselves.

Of course, there are other developments related to this trend. Things like the many online customization tools, the fabber and prototyping tools, and the increasingly available D.I.Y. services like Ponoko or Buglags to name a few. These however generally are very technology driven. And this is where the second point comes in. Technology has opened many areas to the average consumer. But at the same time there still often is the need for certain knowledge and tools, be it of hard- or software. Therefore, this is not accessible to everyone. In addition, the user is physically removed from these products during the design process. Rarely is there any direct interaction between the product and consumer. By using a rather low-tech approach, I am trying to address some of these issues.

Browsing over your web site, I was fascinated by the originality of your designs that incorporate your ideas. Can you illustrate your framework with one of your own designs?

One of my goals was to create a multitude of designs, to explore different areas and address different users as well as to show the flexibility of the framework. To pick one piece out, the ‘drawn’ vase is probably a good example. It is essentially a combination of a dry-erase board with an opening for a flower and a water container mounted behind it. You can use it on the wall or on the table. What the dry-erase board does is to allow the user to redesign its surface and thereby the vase.

So lets go through the six framework principles:

Enable user involvement: The vase is somewhere between an off-the-shelf product and a D.I.Y. project. While it provides the users with a starting point in form of the vase functionality, it allows them add to this.

Make it interactive: By drawing on the dry-erase board, the user directly and physically interacts with the vase, and thereby develops a closer relationship with it.

Provide room for play: While the vase offers a starting point in terms of functionaly, it otherwise literally provides an empty canvas. Not everything is predetermined, but is left open for playful exploration. Watching people creating all different kinds of designs with this was definitely one of the highlights of this project for me.

Keep it simple: I wanted these pieces to be approachable for everyone, meaning not requiring any extensive tools or knowledge. Everyone knows how to hold a pencil, so everyone can use this product. Of course, people‘s drawing skills differ, but that is were the erasable and forgiving nature of the dry-erase board comes in.

Make it personal: As the vase provides for more than just pick&choose within a predetermined selection, it really allows people to create very personal and unique pieces. No vase will ever look the same as any other.

Small Steps: The piece doesn’t require anybody to suddenly draw like an artist. Rather, the user can start with a very simple drawing. But as his confidence and capabilities grow, so can his created product.

What is the role of companies in your concept? What would you recommend a manager that wants to place your ideas into practice?

In terms of manufacturing, the beauty of these designs is that they do not require any major changes in the manufacturing infrastructure as is usually associated with mass customization. As the customization happens at the end user and not in the factory, the company still only needs to create one fixed product.

In terms of management, it probably more comes down to being open-minded and believing in the creativity of end-users. Basically giving the consumer more credit than most companies currently do.

At the same time, we of course need to realize that while customization is a major trend, it is still to be seen how much of the mainstream it will become. While especially Generations X and Y are increasingly interested in self-expression and involvement, the majority of consumers still prefers buying non-customizable products and maybe express themselves solely through selected purchases.

What did originally motivate your research? How did you choose this topic?

As I was researching potential thesis topics, certain personal interests of mine came up repeatedly. These are areas that I have always been fascinated by, like peoples desire to express themselves, peoples urge to create, the growing D.I.Y. movement, and finally new and evolving production methods. At one point, I realized that there might be a way to bring these different areas together, and to use this combination to enable and encourage creativity and self-expression for the consumer. And to simply provide for more joy and fun as part of a product experience.

Why do most industrial designers neglect the customization and self-impression trend? Do design schools educate your designers in these new topics?

First off, there are of course certain products where customization is not applicable, for example for safety reasons. Besides that, a couple of things come to mind.

For one, designing a product that is customizable means giving away some control of the final product. As a designer, you put a lot of time and thought into determining a very particular look, feel, and functionality to create something that addresses a specific need. While most products usually stay as intended when they leave your hands, with customizable pieces you control them only up to a certain degree. This is something not everyone is comfortable with, especially with more visually driven pieces.

In addition, there is also a school of thought with some designers that only they should be the ones ‘designing’. After all, that is what they went to school for and spent a lot of time on, learning how to do it right. According to them, the general consumer does not know about designing, and should not be allowed to do so.

This whole issue of ‘professional’ versus ‘amateur’ designer, across all areas from web over graphic to industrial design, is something we could easily talk about for hours. I personally do not subscribe to this rather elitist thinking, and believe that there is and always will be a place for both. However, and as in every other profession, we designers need to rethink our roles periodically, and adjust to a changing environment.

In terms of design school education, there is obviously an inherent delay of current trends manifesting themselves in the education curriculum. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I believe the value of design school, besides teaching basics like form and color, is rather in teaching creative thinking. This together with providing the appropriate environment for exploration is the starting point. The rest is really up to the individual student, to investigate and explore different areas, and push his own limits as well as that of design in general.

What’s next for you now that you have finished this project?

In terms of the ‘Un-readymades’, I am starting to look into potential options of moving some of them out of the prototype stage and into production. Besides that, as I am done with my Industrial Design degree, I am also currently interviewing for a job. Things are still open though, so I guess I should use this opportunity to invite anybody looking for an Industrial Designer to take a look at my resume and portfolio on my website.

To conclude: What is, in general and beyond your industry, the greatest mass customization offering ever – either one that is already existing or that you would like to get in the future?

Well, this is a pretty grand and open question. Maybe to answer it in a similar open way, I would pick the human mind? It probably does not get much more mass-customized than that. And thinking of it, it actually fits pretty well in my framework. :-)

Contact Martin at martin@martin-konrad.com or http://martin-konrad.com
You can view an illustrated abstract of his work at http://martin-konrad.com/unreadymades

Mass Customization Gets Its First Novel: UK author Sean McManus explores personalized music

Interview: Sean McManus on personalized music, customized books, and why he is using on-demand service Lulu -- and the background of his idea to write a novel featuring a mass customized service offering as its key element.

Sean McManus is the author of ‘University of Death’, a new novel satirizing the music industry. The book explores what happens when a major record label comes up with software for mass customizing music and uses spyware to sell it to customers, without telling them it’s all computer generated. Sean’s previous books include ‘Small Business Websites That Work’ and ‘The Customer Service Pocketbook’. As a journalist, Sean has written for Making Music, Melody Maker, Internet Magazine, Business 2.0, Internet Works and many more. And he has covered mass customization before: In May 2000 he wrote the mass customization essay ‘As you like it’ about for Personal Computer World magazine and in December 2005, he interviewed the company behind Erasure’s customized MP3s for his website at www.sean.co.uk.

Sean, Congratulations! You have written the first novel I know with strong references to personalization and matching-services in the music industry! What's the story?

It's a satire of the music industry, centred around one of the last surviving major record labels, Bigg Records. Clive Bigg is gobbling up independent labels and marketing lowest-common-denominator tosh made by boybands. It’s not enough, though, and like every other label, he’s seeing his business shrink away.

Then one day the solution arrives: a smooth-talking geek called Jonathan Harrington has spent ten years creating the perfect song: moving enough to make you laugh, cry, or dance on the first listen. The catch is that it’s computer generated and tailored for each listener after analysing his or her music collection. Together, Bigg and Harrington conspire to use hidden software to study what fans listen to, and then to automatically concoct and market their dream music to them.

While all this is going on, the story also follows the progress of Dove, who is burned out from touring for decades. He wants to break up his 'creatively bankrupt' band, University of Death, but he couldn't do a proper job. Now Bigg's bought up the indie label the band was on, he's about to make Dove an offer he can't refuse.

And the story also follows two of Dove’s biggest fans: Simon and Fred have a band called Goblin (performing a mix of rock and glam they call 'heavy tinsel'). Like many bands today, they can't get anyone to listen to them, and hope that Bigg will pluck their demo from the pile and launch their careers. As well as doing their own stuff, they cover University of Death in the hope that they'll catch someone's ear. As it turns out, their cover gets them into all kinds of trouble...

Dove, Simon, Fred, Jonathan and Bigg all collide in a finale that threatens the very existence of the music industry.

The story takes a slice through the music business: from the board room to the stage; from the studio to the record fair. It explores how fans relate to their favourite bands, how businesses use technology to manipulate consumers, and what would happen if the music industry disappeared overnight.

Where did you get the idea for this book?

In the 80s I remember typing in a program listing that created music on the Amstrad/Schneider home computer. It sounded a bit foreign and unstructured to me, but it started a fascination with computer generated music that I’ve had ever since.

In recent years, we’ve seen the internet become a channel for both marketing and market research. We’ve seen the rise of technologies that make mass personalisation possible. And we’ve seen record companies backed into a corner and taking desperate measures to prevent piracy, epitomised by Sony BMG putting software on music CDs which was widely considered to be spyware. We’ve seen the start of artificial intelligence as part of our e-commerce applications, with Amazon knowing my taste in books and music better than I do. And we’ve seen the rise of independent bands through communities like MySpace, where high quality music can be shared and sold outside the conventional music industry. All these threads came together in my plot. It’s a timely book. In fact, when the Sony BMG story broke, it felt like my plot was starting to come true!

‘University of Death’ is ultimately about why people love music, and where its soul is. The book explores the extent to which that can be automated or faked. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that (in my novel at least), music needs to come from people, not machines. I listen to a lot of synthesiser music, but that works because there’s a creative person directing it and the computers are just being used as instruments. Even Brian Eno’s generative music, which is unique each time you listen to it, works because a creative musician has defined its parameters before it runs. The question is whether the software will one day be good enough that you couldn’t tell the difference between a computer inventing and performing a song, and real human creativity.

I know your early essay on mass customization (still a well linked source on the topic on the internet). Have you written any other books in the meantime?

I’ve written ‘Small Business Websites That Work’, published by Prentice Hall, and co-authored ‘The Customer Service Pocketbook’. There are free chapters to download from both at www.sean.co.uk.

Why did you want to write this book?

They say everyone has a novel in them. This is mine: it includes so many of the things I love - music, technology, record collecting, old computer games, jokes. But all of them in service of a story and bound together by a single theme. Everyone has something that they just know they have to do in their life, and writing a novel was one of mine.

It's been a long time since I've devoted that much energy to a single project, and it was extremely satisfying. I really enjoyed the writing sessions.

What are your observations on personalization of music in the real world? How often are you, as a consumer, using these services?

The most exciting thing for me has been Trust Media’s customised MP3s, made on-demand using a Flash interface. Erasure made best use of the concept: you could define what kind of beats, vocals, basslines and synth lines you wanted, as you heard the track looping. When you were done, you paid and downloaded your track. Each combination was limited to a single copy, and had unique artwork. The music industry’s been marketing so-called ‘limited edition’ CDs for years, with serial numbers on them often running into hundreds of thousands. This really subverts that: Having the only copy of my favourite version of a particular song and knowing nobody else can buy it is truly a ‘limited edition’. Erasure really appreciated what they could achieve creatively with this technology, and it would be good to see more musicians adopt it. Trust Media is pushing the antipiracy aspect at the moment: people are less inclined to share something that’s unique to them (and traceable), and others are more likely to want their own unique version than someone else’s copy. When the music industry is suffering a decline, it makes more sense for the company to sell antipiracy software than an experimental music format, even if they’re the same thing.

Brian Eno’s done some interesting work with generative music, where he sets the parameters of the work and then each performance is unique. There’s no computer creativity involved in this: it’s still very much his work, with the computer randomly generating each performance of what is essentially one work. His first release of generative music ran on floppy disk and the software is obsolete now, but his 77 Million Paintings software brings the idea up to date and combines it with visuals. It’s not really personalised, though, even though each performance is unique, because I have no control over it.

I enjoyed the music recommendation engine Pandora while that was available [in Europe], but that’s been closed to people outside the US now because they can’t afford to pay international license fees. Last.fm is a nice recommendation engine, but I haven’t used it too much. I still tend to find new music through magazines, reviews online, friends and gigs.

As with publishing, mass customisation has made it viable for bands to sell their own music on CD from the very start. I’ve bought a few CDs by unsigned bands which probably wouldn’t have existed without the mass customisation and ecommerce technology that was used to create and sell them.

And your book is not just on personalization and customization, but I saw on your website that you also are using a print-on-demand service (Lulu.com) to publish it. So why are you self-publishing 'University of Death', and why are you using print-on-demand?

The main reason for using Lulu as my publishing platform is that it enables me to get the book out there much more quickly. I have friends who have written great books and then spent years trying to get interest from a major publisher, while their books have quietly gone stale. I spent two years writing my novel, and I didn’t want to spend another two traipsing it around publishers who are already inundated with other good books. By self-publishing, I can ensure the book reaches readers much more quickly. Because the book deals with many contemporary themes in the music industry and technology, this was important to me.

For a venture like mine, it makes good business sense. There’s no up-front cost working with Lulu, and I don’t have to store hundreds of copies of the book under my bed or in my garage. The downside is that it’s massively more expensive per copy than it would be to do a conventional print run, but it’s an ideal way to test the market for new creative products. I particularly like Lulu because it takes care of the retail side of things too – it handles the credit card or paypal orders, customer service and support. It helps that Lulu tends to rank well in search engines too. Working with Lulu means I don’t have to be involved in handling individual book sales, don’t have to spend up-front, and don’t have to carry stock. It also means customers can have a smooth and fully supported buying experience.

And where can we buy your book?

Thanks for asking! This book is not available in the shops. You can only buy the book at Lulu.com.

When you place your order at Lulu, they'll print your copy, perfect bind it, stick it in a sturdy cardboard wrapper and post it out to you. This book is not available anywhere else because copies don't exist until they're ordered.

You can download the first two chapters for free through www.universityofdeath.co.uk.

To conclude: What is, in general and beyond your industry, the greatest mass customization offering ever – either one that is already existing or that you would like to get in the future?

I’m not sure whether it counts as my industry or not, but I’d like to see more done on books. Wouldn’t it be great if I could instruct an intelligent agent to create a book about ‘Pink Floyd’, or even ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, and have it deliver a unique printed artefact to my door? The software could source newspaper clippings and reviews from leading publishers, maybe some blog posts from well-respected fans too. It could sort them into chronological order, and source images from leading photo libraries. It wouldn’t be easy: there’s a whole rights nightmare to resolve, and the micropayments could prove tricky to administer, particularly once you get down to the level of paying freelance journalists. But if the infrastructure was there, the content would follow. And you could create an interface for narrowing the search to something useful (eg, let users specify publication dates, proportion of blog content to newspaper content, number of images etc). Books are still the best way to communicate and digest large chunks of information, but at the moment, there needs to be a significant market for each book to make it commercially viable. That’s because somebody has to do the leg-work of writing each one, and someone else has to market and distribute it. If you want a book about 90s band ‘Kenickie’ (as I do), you’re probably the only one, so you’re out of luck.

We can already do much of the stuff required: we have good search algorithms, there is a lot of tagged content out there, and there are applications that create PDFs on demand, and others that print them in books. We already trust search engines to decide what content we should see online, so this would be an extension of that and would probably work best if restricted to trusted content providers named up-front. It could be a great way for rights owners to make money from archive material and for researchers or enthusiasts to access original reports from the archives.

This is all probably some way off. Still, I can recommend a nice novel to read in the meantime… ;-)

Zapfab: User-generated content meets 3D Printing

A new Ponoko-alike company is coming from Manchester in the UK! Zapfab Ltd is a user manufacturing start up that offers a new way of delivering individualized, customized products. As other companies in this field, they are combining the creativity of user-generated content with the power of 3D Printing (fabbing).

In a press release I got today, the company is described as follows:

"User-generated content is ubiquitous throughout the internet, from weblogs to YouTube videos. Zapfab builds on this trend, by providing a website where users can easily generate unique designs for 3D objects.

3D Printing is rapidly gaining ground as a way of creating real, physical objects from 3D design data. Zapfab provides an easy way to access this technology: Once you have generated a 3D design you can choose to have it 3D printed: Zapfab will 3D print the design and deliver the finished object to you.

The Zapfab website has two main areas: the Design Catalog and the 3D Customizer. The Design Catalog contains all the designs on the site and is a repository like Google's 3D warehouse. The 3D Customizer is where the customizing takes place: Each design can be customized in different ways: color, size, pattern, etc. and the 3D Customizer contains simple controls for each of the options. So, once a user has customized a design, she can save it back into the catalog for other people to see. And then they in turn can customize and build on her design.

“We see three main groups of users for Zapfab.com,” said Julie Wood, Zapfab Director, in the press release “First, we have made the 3D Customizer really easy to use, so that anyone can create a unique, customized design in just a few minutes.

Second, there are a range of users with 3D modelling skills, who will be able to upload their designs to the site; and we aim to make it easy for them to add customizations to those designs.

Third, users with programming or scripting skill will be able to create new, highly-customizable designs. And all the designs, from the simplest to the most complex, are customizable through the same easy-to-use 3D Customizer.”

At the moment, Zapfab’s Design Catalog contains over 100 customized designs, ranging from bowls to boxes and bangles. All of the designs can be 3D printed “as is”, or freely customized. It is a nice, but at this stage not too creative collection of things. But I hope to see much more activity on their side, and given that they are located in Europe, I also will try this service by myself in the next weeks and let you know about my experiences.

Great Report on User Manufacturing, Mass Customization, and How a New Infrastructure is Providing New Opportunities for SMEs

Last week, I got a note by Steve King, a research affiliate with the Institute for the Future. This is a non-profit research group based in Silicon Valley. Founded in 1968 by a group of former RAND Corporation researchers with a grant from the Ford Foundation to take leading-edge research methodologies into the public and business sectors, the IFTF today publishes reports to help people and companies to understand what is coming next.

They recently released a forecast report that is part of a series on the future of small business. In this report, they stress that small businesses will actively take advantage and use new manufacturing methods to create mass customized goods.

The report was sponsored by Intuit and can be downloaded on their website: http://www.intuit.com/futureofsmallbusiness/ (download Report #3)

In the report, IFTF writes about a new artisan economy that is the result of new manufacturing technologies, enabling individuals to access similar production technologies as large corporations (crafters using Ponoko, see previous posting, are a perfect example). It is a very nice summary of many of the recent trends that I have discussed here. Fabbing, blogging, user manufacturing, customization, open innovation -- it's all there and brought into a nice and coherent framework.

I especially liked the part about the new infrastructure that is enabling these developments:

"Plug-and-play infrastructures will make small businesses more competitive and successful. The ability of small businesses to take advantage of large-scale infrastructures and leverage new technologies will allow them to enter and compete in industries formerly served only by big business."

As an example, they refer to a great service that is enabling moms to become entrepreneurs, Mom Inventors, Inc.:

"For those who want to avoid teh hassle of assembling these services, firms are available to do everything for an entrepreneur. Mom Inventors Ic., for example, weill develop, manufacture, and sell quality Mom invented products throughout the United States and Europe. The mom (entrepreneur) only needs to come up with the idea, Mom Inventors will do the rest."

So I am expecting to these many more knitted marvels and clever kitchen aids on the shelves, invented by "Lead Moms".

In an e-mail exchange, Steve told me more about the background of the report, and stressed another implication from their research:

"A major issue we are trying to figure out is how small business relates to mass customization and user innovation. This was originally prompted by our work looking at consumer generated media - specifically blogs.

We found that the blogs with the most traffic were not authored by consumers, but by professionals. The professionals tended to fall into two categories: (1) small or independent businesses trying to build a small publishing business; or (2) professionals using blogs to promote either themselves or the goods and services of their company. Looking deeper at the second group, we found that most of them worked for small businesses.

Based on this work (which we did several years ago), we started looking at other categories. We quickly found a similar pattern of small business participation across a broad range of categories, including media (YouTube videos, etc.), open source software, crafts and small scale manufacturing (a lot of Makers at Maker Faire are small businesses, for example), financial services, etc.

Basically, we saw small businesses playing a role in almost every category where niche products and/or services were being built or highly customized. We also found a pattern of category "power users" moving from being hobbyists to starting their own small businesses. We kept seeing "prosumers" turning into small businesses, and we kept seeing small businesses somewhere in the customization value chain."

Accordingly, another area indicated in the report where small businesses will grow in the future is to serve as an innovation lab for larger corporations. Platforms like Innocentive or P&G's connect and develop program will help small businesses to sell their creativity to larger corporations in an efficient way. This may be the next wave of contract research.

Overall, a nice summary of recent trends that is worthwhile reading due its focus on small businesses.

Context: Get the full report here. http://www.intuit.com/futureofsmallbusiness/ (download Report #3)

INTELLIFIT Moves From Virtual Fitting (match-to-order) to True Mass Customization: Custom-made jeans with a high-tech twist

Intellifit is know to me as one of the leading providers of match-to-order systems in fashion retail. They currently market a special 3D full body scanner. At a retail location, the consumer enters a see-through "Intellifit Virtual Fitting Room" (the scnanner) that's 8' high and 7' wide. There, low power radio waves collect about 200 accurate body measurements in under 15 seconds – a personal “FitPrint” – while the consumer remains fully clothed. This data is used to match the user's measurements with sizing information of (standard) garments in the store.

According to the company, Intellifit has measured over 230,000 individuals to date, representing the largest sizing database of its kind in the world.

But now Intellifit customers will become enabled to use their profiles to shop for custom made jeans, and in the future, for custom pants, khakis, or shirts. Last week, the company began a test of its “Custom Jeans Center” at its company retail store outside of Philadelphia. Consumers can design their own custom-made jeans with a guarantee of a perfect fit. In the moment, retail shopping is by appointment only and includes consultation with a fashion advisor.

The customer can choose jeans from a selection of styles and washes and add details such as pocket shape and design, stitching and personalization options. The price point of the custom jeans is at about $150.

The FitPrint is transferred electronically from the retail location to the jeans manufacturer, where the garment pieces are custom-cut by computer control. The completed custom jeans are shipped directly to the customer in 3 to 4 weeks.

“This test will help us determine the scalability of the process. With a positive result, an international roll-out will be close behind,” Rob Weber, Intellifit's President, is quoted in a recent press release.

I believe that this combination of mass customization and match-to-order is a very promising way of establishing a sustainable operation. Many consumers do not want to wait for a perfect fit that is just made for them, but also are frustrated by complexity of choice and not finding their right size in a large retail store. Also, if the system finds that a standard item on stock is providing you a good fit, the retailer will have an advantage as the inventory can be reduced. On the other hand, if a consumer does not find a standard garment according to her fit and preferences, she does not have to leave the store without a puchase -- but can be transferred to the mass customization option.

For Intellifit, entering the mass customization market also is a great way to leverage the exiting investments in building such a large database of "FitPrint" customer profiles.

Context:
- For more information and store locations, go to www.intellifit.com.
- MVM's virtual model and Archetype's ZAFU are similar matching-services in the online world.
- Report about METRO's matching and in-store recommendation service

Industry Study on State of Rapid Manufacturing and the Future of Production

EOS, a leading manufacturer of laser-sintering systems, recently presented a market study on the state of laser-sintering technology for production tasks (called rapid manufacturing, e-Manufacturing or also fabbing). These technologies have been used pre-dominantly for prototyping tasks in the past where they allowed experimentation to a much higher degree. But their real economic impact comes from their role as a manufacturing technology, allowing custom manufacturing with no switching cost. It is now starting to compete with conventional casting technologies.

Rapid manufacturing delivers end products, functional parts and tools directly from CAD data. A laser heats and melts powdered plastics or metals layer by layer, until the build is complete and a final product can be taken out of the system. Whether it is jewelery, clothes, lamps, chairs or functional parts for components that are being manufactured, laser sintering and similar generative manufacturing technologies enable the creation of products with highly complex and filigreed structures and forms that are unthinkable geometries for conventional series production – and each piece can be customized at no additional cost.

EOS is, according to its own statement, the world-leading provider of this technology with revenues in laser-sintering of 59.7 million Euro in 2007, an increase of 14 percent compared to the previous year. This number shows that the market still is very small compared to the multi-billion market of traditional production equipment.

On the recent EuroMold Trade Show, the company conducted a survey among industry experts about the future of manufacturing. Is individualized series production from CAD data going to prevail in the future? And which technologies will drive this type of production? The answers on this survey have been published in a recent press release.

While no information is given on the number of respondents or any basic statistical validity, and the study obviously is biased due to its originator, here some quotes from the press release which address some questions I often get from readers of this blog:

33% of the respondents believe that individualized production with laser-sintering is already market-ready, while 37% predict the establishment of the technology in the market within the next three years. The rest anticipate the establishment of rapid manufacturing within five years, with only 4% seeing a lag of ten years.

According to the survey, rapid manufacturing is driven by the general mass customization trend. Both industry and end consumers increasingly request individually manufactured products, creating a potential demand for mass customization of those products. And this is exactly where rapid manufacturing comes into play: 28% of those interviewed said that the trend towards individualized series production is the most important factor for the success of the technology.

Nearly a quarter of the interviewees saw greater “cost savings compared to conventional technologies”.
22% judged that rapid manufacturing will overtake traditional technologies due to “shorter product life cycles”.

But rapid manufacturing with laser-sintering also faces a number of challenges: 29% of the interviewees called the limited choice of materials as the greatest barrier to implementation of rapid manufacturing technology.

Interestingly, respondents felt that the main difficulty is not so much the emerging technology itself, but rather a lack of knowledge and openness in the industry. Approximately a quarter of the respondents judged the “lack of know-how in the industry” as a hindrance. Companies are yet not aware about the technology or lack the capability to change their design and production processes in such a radical way.

Finally the interviewees were asked for their predictions about production methods 20 years in the future.
A clear majority (63%) forecast the broad establishment of mass customization in the Western world. 21% even believe that end customers will have their own mini-factories and produce their own products with rapid manufacturing. About 9% of those asked went so far as to remark that, in 20 years time, manual manufacturing will only take place on the PC.

Context:

- My previous posts on rapid manufacturing
- EOS site with case studies and more articles
- 3rd International Rapid Manufacturing Conference 2008 in the UK - I will speak there as well!

Trend Map 2008: See where personalization, open innovation, and mass customization are in 2008

Last year, I often showed in my presentations the great trend map created by Nowandnext.com and Future Exploration Network. They position in form of a subway map the major trends in society, policy, technology, and economy and thus provide a fresh look on these themes. And in case you need any buzzword for your talk or paper, they are all there.

Recently, the 2008 trend map has been published. It is derived from Shanghai’s underground routes. Limited to just five lines, the map uncovers key trends across Society, Politics, Demographics, Economy, and Technology.

Trends mentioned in the map include:

Simplicity, Reality mining, 3-D printers, Personalization, Geospatial web, Networked risk, Data visualisation, Open Innovation, or Constant partial attention.

But it also has nice ideas like Celebrity worship, Female chauvinism, or even Karma capitalism.

For all students, an important disclaimer from the trend map's authors: "Remember that our trend maps are generally for stimulation rather than being taken too seriously… :-)"

The trend map again is released on a Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons license, so readers are free to improve or modify the map!

Download the 2008 trend map as PDF here. The old 2007 trend map can be found here.

Crowdsourcing methods are McKinsey's Prime Business Technology Trends to Watch In 2008

In the recent issue of McKinsey Quarterly, the business journal of strategy consultants McKinsey & Co, James Manyika, Roger Roberts and Kara Sprague discuss Eight Business Technology Trends to Watch In 2008. Five of those eight relate directly to the topics of this blog:

Four trends, Distributing Cocreation, Using consumers as innovators, Tapping into a world of talent, and Extracting more value from interactions are sub-sets of the larger Crowdsourcing idea.

(1) Distributing co-creation is just another term for our own "interactive value creation" or Benkler's "commons-based peer production" or Don Tapscott's "Wikinomics". No doubt that this is a mega-trend which has been described widely in the last years but which practical implementation just has started. In consequence, McKinsey estimates that 12% of all labor activity could be transformed by more distributed and networked innovation:

"Outsiders offer insights that help shape product development, but companies typically control the innovation process. Technology now allows companies to delegate substantial control to outsiders -- co-creation -- in essence by outsourcing innovation to business partners that work together in networks. By distributing innovation through the value chain, companies may reduce their costs and usher new products to market faster by eliminating the bottlenecks that come with total control."

Interestingly, however, in the entire McKinsey article is no word on open source or open licensing models ("commons-based") which are a main driver for the efficiency of distributed open systems of value co-creation. This may be perhaps too much for the typical reader of McKinsey Quarterly.

(2) Using consumers as innovators: Well, not really a new trend, Eric von Hippel is saying this since the 1970s, and since the beginning of industrial production consumers are inventing new products. The new trend, however, is that firms are seeing this potential and they increasingly are utilizing the capabilities for innovation. They are not just asking for feedback on their own creations, but they are integrating consumers actively in the creation of something new. MyKinsey is quoting Threadless here, but this is not a correct example for this trend as most the creators at Threadless are no consumers but experts!

A better example, quoted by the iRise Blog in a posting on the McKinsey article, is Dell's IdeaStorm, and, on the B2B front, Salesforce.com. This software company is using an application for users to make suggestions to improve their CRM software. The top ideas from this contest is receiving executive-level visibility.

(3) Tapping into a world of talent is the consequence of opening your innovation and value creation process:. The people reacting on an open call for participation in the " Distributing co-creation" idea are those who are the most talented to do this work (as they have relatively lower cost to fulfill the job):

"As more and more sophisticated work takes place interactively online and new collaboration and communications tools emerge, companies can outsource increasingly specialized aspects of their work and still maintain organizational coherence. Much as technology permits them to decentralize innovation through networks or customers, it also allows them to parcel out more work to specialists, free agents, and talent networks."

This leads to a further consequence, and their next trend: (4) Extracting more value from interactions. The more a company is relying for value creation in its periphery, the higher is its costs for coordination compared to production cost.

"As a result, a growing proportion of the labor force in developed economies engages primarily in work that involves negotiations and conversations, knowledge, judgment, and ad hoc collaboration—tacit interactions, as we call them. By 2015 we expect employment in jobs primarily involving such interactions to account for about 44 percent of total US employment, up from 40 percent today. Europe and Japan will experience similar changes in the composition of their workforces."

This is nothing new at all, the fact, that the so-called transaction cost are dominating the overall cost in a modern economy is known since several decades. But it is good that McKinsey are stressing this relationship again – as mastering these cost will become a major capability for firms which want to profit from crowdsourcing. Technology is leading this path:

"Technology tools that promote tacit interactions, such as wikis, virtual team environments, and videoconferencing, may become no less ubiquitous than computers are now. As companies learn to use these tools, they will develop managerial innovations—smarter and faster ways for individuals and teams to create value through interactions—that will be difficult for their rivals to replicate. Companies in sectors such as health care and banking are already moving down this road. […] But: Creating the business case for investing in interactions will be challenging—but critical—for managers."

(5) A last trend from their report is "Putting more science into management". Technology is continuously helping managers exploit ever-greater amounts of data in real-time to make smarter decisions. One of the business models which are enabled by this data-driven management is mass customization, named by McKinsey as "the holy grail of deep customer insight":

"The amount of information and a manager’s ability to use it have increased explosively not only for internal processes but also for the engagement of customers. The more a company knows about them, the better able it is to create offerings they want, to target them with messages that get a response, and to extract the value that an offering gives them. The holy grail of deep customer insight—more granular segmentation, low-cost experimentation, and mass customization—becomes increasingly accessible through technological innovations in data collection and processing and in manufacturing."

Go to the original article which has plenty of good references for further reading (requires registration, for a version of the full text of this paper, go to ZDnet).

User Manufacturing Trendwatching Report

Trendwatching, a large trend research network, has recently published its annual briefing on the main trends for 2008. Among them is my favorite new topic, user manufacturing (other terms for the same idea are desktop manufacturing, manufacturing as a service, fabbing, ...). Named "MIY – Make it Myself" the Trendwatching crew is naming user manufacturing as the next big thing in user-created content.

"[user generated content]" is a mainstream trend now, one that keeps giving, with millions of consumers uploading their creative endeavors online, and tens of millions of others enjoying the fruits of their creativity. User-generated content, at least in the online world, has grown from a teenage hobby to an almost equal contender to established entities in news, media, entertainment and craft."

These consumers expect to be able to create anything they want as long as it is digital, and to customize and personalize many physical goods with traditional mass customization offerings. The next step in this evolution will be their desire to transfer digitally designed products into real physical goods as well.

Trendwatching is expecting that "MIY | MAKE IT YOURSELF (and then SIY | SELL IT YOURSELF) becomes increasingly sophisticated in the next 12 months".

As references, they refer to old friends which have been covered in this blog before:

# New Zealand-based Ponoko (which works like a Zazzle for 3D objects, see my original article on them here)

# Fab Lab Bcn (Barcelona) is part of the worldwide network of Fab Labs, an initiative of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, and provides a laser-cutter, water jet, 3D printer, mini-mill and other machines for participants to use. One of Fab Lab's initiators is Neil Gershenfeld, professor at MIT and author of FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop.

# The Desktop Factory 3D printer, with a list price of USD 4,995, uses an inexpensive halogen light source and drum printing technology to build robust parts from composite plastic powder, layer by layer. Desktop Factory envisages that within three years, Desktop Factory's 3D printers will be affordable for home use.

# They also mention the Swedish design group FRONT and their Sketch Furniture project. This trio materializes freehand sketches of furniture into real options. Very nice, very expensive with a chair starting at USD 10,500 per piece.

The last section of their trend report is very important to read, something that I always mention in my presentations on the limitations of user manufacturing:

"Now, we're not saying every consumer is going to design and manufacture his or her own furniture or appliances. Rather, MIY is yet another piece of the participation puzzle: enabling those consumers who feel like it to call the shots, bypassing traditional players. In future briefings we’ll address the implications of what this choice – being able to consume ready-made or create their own versions of anything and everything – will mean for the behavior and expectations of younger generations."

Context:
- The orginal Trendwatching report

- My original report about user manufacturing and my definition of this idea

- My earlier report about Ponoko (more here).

- My earlier report about the low cost 3D printers

- If you can read German, Jochen Krisch had many excellent postings on user manufacturing in the last months, a very good staring point is his recent listing of all 3D printing services on the web.

- A very good starting point also is press reports of Z-Printer, a manufacturer of 3D printers used to make custom objects.

Top 10 Mass Customization Companies in 2007 -- Report in Best Practice Business Blog

Happy New Year!

Best Practice Business is a rather large German blog, and Burkhard Schneider, its main author, recently added more and more good reports on new mass customization companies. If you understand German, very worthwhile to read.

Yesterday, as part of the usual top 10 lists popping up at the end of the year, he also created a list of "top 10" mass customization companies in 2007. There are a number of great concepts, others I find less innovative, other are missing, but it is a great review of interesting concepts in the area. The blog, and the posting, are in German, but you easily will get the picture. Here is the top-10 list (go here for further descriptions and the links)

# Mymuesli: Mass Customized Müsli
# Blends For Friends: Mass Customized Teas
# Vuru – Custom nutrition
# My Twinn - custom dolls
# Miss-Information: Custom travel books
# flattenme: Personalized children books
# TasteBook: Mass Customized recepies
# Paragon Lake: mass customized jewelry
# Cosmocards - Personal Greeting Cards
# Zyrra – mass customized bras

MIT Technology Review on Ponoko: "Ponoko wants to give customers the tools to design and sell whatever they want."

Last week, Michael Gibson published a very nice analysis on Ponoko in the MIT Technology Review. I wrote about this company before, and the article has a nice summary of the recent developments of this user manufacturing start up.

Gibson writes:

"For most companies, product design and development is a long process of trial and error, involving, among other things, in-house designers, committees, timed product releases, and, ultimately, customer feedback. Until a product sells, or if it doesn't sell, it takes up costly shelf space in either stores or warehouses.

But by letting individuals dream up, make, and then sell unique products on demand, Ponoko is attempting to eliminate the product-development wing. Ultimately, it hopes to eliminate the need for a centralized manufacturing plant as well, by recruiting a large enough community of digital manufacturers--people scattered around the world who have 3-D printers, CNC routers, and laser cutters. Moving the site of production as close as possible to the point of purchase will reduce the need for long-distance shipping.

"Just as personal computing went from the mainframe to the desktop, and the result was distributed desktop computing, we see the same trend occurring with digital manufacturing, as it moves from the warehouse to the desktop," says Derek Elley, the chief strategy officer for Ponoko."

At the end of the article, Gibson quotes Phillip Torrone, a senior editor at Make magazine, who tried Ponoko to create a custom stand for his iPhone:

"They did everything that was required for me to get my product," Torrone says. "Their tutorials are fine; the templates were good examples. Pretty much, they did everything right. Now the question is, is there a demand? How much money does a company like this need to make to stay afloat?"

Ellery's answer is that, eventually, Ponoko's revenue will come entirely from digital services, not from manufacturing fees. The company intends to develop six revenue streams, including ad sales and commissions on design purchases."

For more analysis, head to the full article.

Ponoko and related services, and the corresponding business model, are the theme of my upcoming webinar with Pure Inisghts. More information here!

Rethinking Business: Products of tomorrow: Fabbing, personalization & custom manufacturing (Essen, 22. Nov 2007)

A VERY interesting focused event on the new world of fabbing, laser sintering, user manufacturing, and how to make business with this will take place in Essen (Germany) on Nov 22 afternoon & evening. Hosted by Z-Punkt, an innovative trend consultancy, and taking place in the Zeche Zollverein, a spectacular industrial location, the conference promised to become a real eye-opener and point of discussion.

For more information on the theme, have a look on this previous blog post: I will host a webinar on the same topic of user manufacturing on Nov 29 in case you cannot travel to Essen, Germany, for this event.

For a list of all speakers and the detailed program, please download the event flyer.

The event will be in German language, so all the following announcements are in German language as well.

Erfahren Sie, wie neue Materialien zu Innovationstreibern werden und warum der 3D-Druck das Business revolutioniert. Die Konferenz "Rethinking Business #02. Produkte von morgen" findet am 22. November 2007 auf der Zeche Zollverein in Essen statt. Themenschwerpunkte: Neue Materialien und individuelle Produktion.

Und noch mehr Informationen zum Thema finden Sie in einen Interview mit Frank Piller auf dem Z-Punkt-Blog.

Drucken wir in ein paar Jahren unser Geschirr jeden Tag frisch aus unserem persönlichen 3D-Drucker aus? Und werden die Fallschirme der Zukunft aus Nano-Spinnfäden gefertigt? Wie neue Materialien die Produktwelt von morgen prägen und welches Innovationspotenzial in einer individualisierten Produktionsweise steckt – das diskutiert Z_punkt im Rahmen der Konferenz „Produkte von morgen“ am 22. November 2007 in der Zollverein School of Management and Design in Essen.

Die zweite Veranstaltung im Rahmen des Konferenzzyklus „Rethinking Business“ setzt den Fokus auf „Neue Materialien und Individuelle Produktion“ – und schlägt dabei die Brücke von der Vision zur Praxis. Der nach dem Open-Source-Modell „fab@home“ für 2.000,- Euro gebaute Prototyp eines einfachen 3D-Druckers geht während der Konferenz live in Produktion und vermittelt den Teilnehmern einen Eindruck von den zukünftigen Möglichkeiten einer Fabrik im Taschenformat: Mit einem für Endkunden erschwinglichen 3D-Printer könnte das Ausdrucken von Alltagsprodukten nämlich bald flächendeckend zu Hause möglich sein.

„Uns beschäftigt im Rahmen der Rethinking-Business-Reihe die Frage, wie die Wirtschaft der Zukunft funktioniert. Dieses Mal interessieren wir uns für die Produktwelt. Wir fragen: Wie sehen die Produkte der Zukunft aus? Wie werden sie entwickelt und hergestellt? Und wie müssen sich Unternehmen aufstellen, um intelligente Materialien und individuelle Produktion als Innovationstreiber zu nutzen“, sagt Andreas Neef, geschäftsführender Gesellschafter von Z_punkt.

Darauf muss die Wirtschaft vorbereitet sein – wie einst beim Siegeszug des Personal Computers. Dr. Matthias Lüken, Produktentwickler bei Henkel, und Dr. Sigurd Buchholz, Technologieexperte bei der Bayer Technology Services GmbH, berichten aus der Industrieperspektive über Anwendungsmöglichkeiten und Innovationspotenziale einer individualisierten Produktionsweise.

Weitere Infos:
Rethinking Business #02. Produkte von morgen

22 Nov 2007, 16:00 - 21:30 Uhr at Zollverein School of Management & Design, Essen

http://www.rethinkingbusiness.de

Programm-Flyer und Anmeldung online (Studenten können für nur 50 Euro teilnehmen !)

Info: Silke Schneider (schneider@z-punkt.de)

MCPC 2007: Finally a Conference Report & Review

The MCPC 2007 now is over since almost a month, and finally I get the time to restart blogging. Immediately after the conference, my teaching period at RWTH started, and I was very busy in keeping my students happy.

What to write? The MCPC 2007 was a terrific and very rewarding event. We were a great bunch of several hundreds of people at MIT and HEC Montreal, and the depth and quality of discussion was amazing. To get an overview, you can download all abstracts of the conference here. You also can order the full-text proceedings here.

I will not provide a long conference report here but let our participants talk. We received this quotes after the conference, and they summarize very neatly what was special about this conference:

"Thank you for organizing the best conference I have ever attended. This conference gave me a lot of power, ideas, and inspiration for my future research. I have been struggling in my research regarding MC for footwear for ten years. Few researchers are studying MC for the footwear industry in the US, but learning that many researchers and firms are tackling this issue in other countries, gave me inspiration. In addition, many colleagues don't realize the enormous potential of MC. Now I can perceive of a clear future direction for MC after attending this conference." Sage Endo, School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi

"Excellent conference. I thought Joe Pine's talk was enough to make the
conference worthwhile (it was) but then the rest of it was beyond my
expectations as well. Congratulations." Suzanne Loker; Cornell University

"One of the best, if not the best conference I've ever been to. Right mix of
theory and practice." Oinonen Sami, Nokia

"It has been one of the most rewarding conferences I've have attended. It was really
well organized as it brought together a heterogeneous group of people
who usually don't interfere with each other. The complementary competencies make an ideal arena for some really exiting stuff to happen." Christian Thuesen, NCC Construction Denmark

"It was an eye opener and I can't remember a time when so much new information (at least for me) was crammed into such a short time." Art St Onge, President, St Onge Company

"Seeing so many people trying to forward mass customization across so many different disciplines was very inspiring and I'm already looking forward to the next conference!" Monika Desai, Footwear Entrepreneur, Boston

And one note made all of us very proud:

"Thank you so much for getting me to speak at this week's event! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and seeing what a great group of folks you have brought together to push forward the state of art in Mass Customization." B. Joseph Pine II, Author of "Mass Customization"

Joe gave a really inspiring talk to start the conference. It almost was a journey though his life, starting with the very first research on mass customization and ending with its most recent book (just published this month) on Authenticity.

Joe agreed that we can share his slides and so you can follow his thoughts at least partly on paper. Download his presentation here. (Including Joe's personal comments on screen during the presentation!).

For more conference reviews, several blogs have provided feedback:

A great large and extensive conference report can be found here: http://no-retro.com/home/category/mass-customisation/

Ronal Reddington from the Made For One Blog collected a selection of feedback from our visitors posted in several blogs. He could not make it in person to the MCPC; but contributed with this selection! Thanks a lot, Ronal!

Based on his original summary, here are some quotes and links to more extensive reports:

First off, Peter Semmelhack of Bug Labs, who spoke at MCPC 2007, wrote briefly about the event on the company’s BugBloggers weblog. For some pictures, just look here.

As Ronal Reddington wrote, Bug Labs is producing an open source, modular consumer electronics platform which will allow individual users to customize gadgets. I am really looking forward to their launch at the end of this year.

Elaine Polvinen, Professor of Fashion Textile Technology at Buffalo State University, published her thoughts on the MCPC Business Seminar in Montreal on her Virtual Fashion Technology blog. Her conclusion:

"The conference was short, and jam packed with interesting presentations highlighting the latest developments in mass customization and personalization. Someone mentioned at the conference that an obstacle preventing wider scale use of mass customization and personalization was a system to input and save standardized measurements. As I listened to these comments I remembered that such a system was recently developed in Korea called i-fashion."

I-Fashion was represented with several talks during the MCPC research conference at MIT.

Michael Galpert, Chief Operations Officer of Worth100.com, shares his notes on MPCP 2007 Pre-Conference Workshop at MIT. Real notes, but interesting to read (especially for me to see what people note while I am talking :-).

Adrian Bowyer of the RepRap digital manufacturing machine (3D printer) project, posted about his journey to Boston and how he set up one of the ‘Darwin’ 3D printers in the conference lobby. This was one of the great exhibits we had a MIT !! And one of the most interesting discussions we had a MIT: The upcoming world of user manufacturing where cheap manufacturing infrastructure will allow users to make directly what they want ... without having to wait for a manufacturer to set up a traditional mass customization system for them.

Another home fabbing device we had on the conference was the famous Fab@Home machine from Cornell university (I wrote about this before in this blog).

Robert Freund reports in German, but larger detail on his impressions from the conference and the feedback he received.

Ruben Robert of open innovation accellerator FellowForce has published a short summary of his MCPC presentation ‘The Business Smarts of Strangers’ on the FellowForce blog. And FellowForce also gave us their innovation widget for free to gather feedback and ideas for the next MCPC 2009 ! (See it on the conference web site),

The writers of the OPENeur blog also participated át the MCPC 2007 – here is their preview.

Adam Fletcher from Spreadshirt also reported from its MCPC 2007 trip which took place while he was very busy in running the "Open Logo project" for Spreadshirt: Posting 1 and Posting 2

So: A great event with great people and really interesting discussions. The next conference will be in Europe in September/October 2009 –we have not decided yet where and are taking proposals from interested universities who want to host the 2009 conference. if you are interested, you drop me a line!

Update: On configurator-database.com, you find a number of MCPC 2007 conference pictures, but -- first of all -- a number of great videos with some prominent participants.

More information:

You still can order the proceedings: They are a pretty expensive 149 USD for the booklet and CD-Rom, but the price included VAT (19% sales tax) and international shipping. The proceedings include many of the papers in full text or extended abstracts, plus access to a special web site with about 40 slide sets of the presentations and the pre-conference workshops.

MCPC 2007 Starts: The International Mass Customization Community Gathers at MIT

Wow, these were a couple of very loaded weeks of preparing the MCPC 2007 conference. But now the fruits of all this work are there: Hundreds of mass customization enthusiasts are arriving in Boston to meet at MIT during the next days.

The conference will start tomorrow (Sunday) with pre-workshops and then the big opening keynote of B. Joseph Pine. Joe will discuss the origins of the mass customization movement that led to the MCPC, his views on the current state of the art, and where his continuing search for how businesses can add economic value through their offerings is leading him -- and where it could take us.

After Joe, Brennan Mulligan will present the latest from Zazzle.com. The company recently relaunched its website and introduced a number of new services that enable consumers to even easier create their own stuff and sell it to others in their own MC mini shop.

I am very excited to here what they will say – as the other 160 speakers in the remaining two days. But most exciting will be to meet

As you have realized, I did not find the time to blog really a lot during the last weeks, and will be very busy also during the conference. But the guys from the Openeur Blog are with us reporting from the MCPC, and I also think that Adam Fletcher from Spreadshirt / HipHipUK will post a line or two.

I will provide my comprehensive report after I return from Boston. If you cannot join us, there again will be the opportunity to order the conference proceedings with a full text version of many papers.

Talking about joining: If you do not have a private jet or live on the East Coast, it may be a bit difficult to arrive in time for the MIT event, but you still can make it relaxed and in time to the great MCPC 2007 Business Seminar at HEC Montreal on October 11th . It will provide a focused top-management-view on mass customization in retail and the future of virtual identities.

During the Montreal event, more than 30 top executives from the industry will talk, plus some very great keynotes from Don Tapscott and the leading Supply Chain Manager at Dell !!

Interview: Uche Okonkwo on the Mass Customization Trend in the Luxury Industry

Uche C. Okonkwo is the Executive Director & Co-founder of Luxe, E.t.c., a Paris based Strategy & Management Consultancy specialized in the luxury industry. She also will be a presenter at the MCPC 2007 conference at MIT in Boston (Oct 7-9, 2007). In her new book, Luxury Fashion Branding, she also discusses the growing mass customization trend in the luxury industry.

Uche is one of the pioneer strategy and management consultants in the luxury industry and a key player in the current re-shaping of the industry. Her company, Luxe E.t.c. advises luxury companies such as Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Gucci, Piaget, André Ross, Daniele de Winter among several others.

A regular conference speaker, Uche is also the Editor of the luxury business magazine, Luxe-Mag.Com targeted at both the luxury business and academic communities. She has an MBA from Brunel Buisness School, London and is a guest lecturer and doctorate candidate at Ecole Superieur de Commerce, Rennes.

Her new book, Luxury Fashion Branding>, addresses the business of luxury fashion from a strategic viewpoint through tracing the origins of luxury fashion, assessing its consumer behaviour, retailing tactics, branding and marketing strategies, ebusiness, business modeling, the new luxury, customization strategies and best and worst practices. The chapter on mass customization in this book attracted me to contact her and ask her about the growing mass customization trend in the luxury industry.

Ms. Okonkwo, what trends support the growth of mass customization in the luxury industry?

The major factor driving this trend is simply the changing needs of luxury consumers. Luxury consumers worldwide have evolved in recent decades and in most luxury key markets, the consumer has become highly informed and savvy about marketing techniques (and possibilities), making them appear more intelligent. And we all know that when people become more intelligent, they naturally become more demanding of choices, options and their levels of influence. In this industry, consumers want personal recognition through a more intimate relationship with the brands. One of the most efficient ways of addressing this need is through mass customization, which provides the possibility of participation in the product creation process.

Which are some recent examples of mass customization in the luxury industry that you find most appealing?

As indicated in my book, luxury brands have been reluctant to adopt mass customization as a core aspect of their marketing/ retail strategies since it has been widely believed that mass customization robs the brands of the ‘exclusive’ and ‘distance’ factors that luxury requires to thrive. Luxury brands are however beginning to understand the multiple possibilities of customization and how these can be applied without over-exposing their brands. As a result of this scenario, there remain few examples that can be used as benchmarks. A notable one is British accessories brand, Anya Hindmarch, which allows clients to personalize their leather goods on its website. Louis Vuitton has also provided the possibility of customizing its charm bracelets on its website, in the past.

How are these developments different to the traditional bespoke or tailor-made products which often are synonymously with luxury goods?

The main feature of the current mass customization techniques for luxury companies is technology, particularly the Internet. Luxury brands have multiple possibilities to customize products, services and experiences using the Internet and their e-Databases. There is also the advanced development of customizing the customer experience through mobile applications featuring brand-specific customized content, as powered by Interactive Luxury Solutions (www.interactiveluxurysolutions.com)

Do you think that mass customization will “downgrade” the image of luxury goods if now everyone can afford a custom-made bag or custom-made shoes? How will the democratization of the bespoke tailor affect the luxury industry?

Customization in itself does not downgrade luxury goods if the other aspects of the marketing mix remain constant. There are multiple tactics that can be applied to luxury product customization that do not dilute the luxury characteristics but actually enhance the brand equity. For example, if the price of customized luxury goods remain premium and the provision of customization possibilities is time-controlled or related to special products, events or client groups, then customization will actually become an aspirational aspect of luxury retailing.

What about mass customization of services? Luxury is very much about being pampered and supported. Will mass customization also change luxury services?

Customizing luxury services is actually one of the means of enhancing intimate relations with clients and extending the pampering element. If a client walks into the Louis Vuitton store on Avenue Montaigne in Paris, and is immediately recognized, not just physically but also their product preferences, sizes and how they prefer to shop, that would be exceptional customer service. In the same way, if a client visits the Palazzo Versace in Australia and every aspect of their stay is customized according to their preferences, it will definitely enhance their brand affiliation towards Versace.

What are the main challenges in mass customization for the luxury industry still ahead?

The major challenge lies in changing the orientation and thinking of luxury companies. The majority of luxury brands have a pessimistic view of mass customization. Luxury brands need to recognize customization as a core aspect of their corporate strategies and a booster of brand equity.

What would be your main advice for a manager or a top brand in the luxury industry who wants to implement mass customization?

I would tell them to apply customization but at same time remain true to their brand identity and the core attributes that set them apart as luxury brands. This is the way to assure the feasibility of customization in the luxury arena.

To conclude: What is, in general and beyond your industry, the greatest mass customization offering ever – either one that is already existing or that you would like to get in the future?

This is a tricky one! Personally I will be thrilled the day I will walk into a luxury fashion store and receive product suggestions based on my shopping history and pre-registered preferences, both online and offline. The luxury industry is decades away from other sectors in adopting advanced customization techniques but I’d like to think that I’m wrong.

Contact Ms. Uche C. Okonkwo at author [at] luxuryfashionbranding.com

Bikers Want Customized Motorcycle Seats, Custom Fit Study Finds

Motorcyclists are in favor of customizing their motorcycle seats according to their body geometry. A survey on customization of motorcycle seats carried out as part of the European funded project Custom-Fit, found that 81% of the survey respondents support the idea of a customized seat.

The Custom-Fit project is investigating new techniques for customizing a product based on Rapid Manufacturing (RM). The project is supported with almost 10 millions Euro by the European Community and is one of the largest projects in the area of customization (Disclosure: I am a member of the project’s scientific advisory board).

As explained in the previous posting, RM allows parts to be manufactured directly and automatically using 3D computer-aided design (CAD) model. The new technique will enable consumers to buy products that are built to the exact requirements of the consumers. A motorcycle customized according to body geometry is one of the products which the project is investigating. Other possible applications of the new technique include prosthetic sockets, helmets, mandible implants and knee implants.

The survey was recently carried out by Loughborough University in UK, who is a partner in the project, and received 3200 responses from motorcyclists worldwide. In the survey, majority of the respondents owned a motorcycle and do not share their motorcycle with another person. Although only half of the respondents said that they had experience of discomfort from their motorcycle seats, but majority felt the discomfort during long distance travelling. In addition, more than half of the respondents are willing to pay a premium for the customized seat and many were willing to wait longer.

Professor Richard Hague, Head of the Rapid Manufacturing Research Group in Loughborough University, said: “These initial results show that there is wide support for customised goods – even if initially they are more expensive and take longer to produce.” (Note: Richard Hague chairs the Rapid Manufacturing Track at the MCPC 2007 conference!)

The next phase in the project will be to investigate the technical practicality of designing a motorcycle seat based on the scan data of the consumer’s body profile. Research on how to obtain the body geometry has already started and the project is is now working on defining a “comfort map”, which is a combination of the pressure map and the discomfort zones.

This result is used to identify the area on the seat which needs to be redesigned and the new seats will be testes on motorcycles. At the same time, the management issues involved in providing a customization service for motorcycle seats have also been studied. The project has identified the possible ways to offer the service to the consumers and is studying the supply chain implications of introducing such a service.

Context:

- More results from the Custom Fit project will be presented in several talks on the MCPC 2007 @ MIT !

- Custom-Fit is an industry led project to investigate the possibility of moving towards knowledge based manufacturing and customized production through integration of knowledge in Rapid Manufacturing, Information Technology and Material Science. Funded under the Sixth Framework Program, the project involves 33 partners from around Europe. The aim is to create a fully integrated system for the design, production and supply of individualized products. It has targeted product for implementing the new technology, including motorcycle seats, helmets, implants and prosthesis. Project homepage: http://www.custom-fit.org/

MCPC 2007 @ MIT -- Program Online: More than 150 Presentations Selected for the MCPC 2007 Conference at MIT

The 2007 World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization is coming closer. Finally, an overview with all presentations accepted from the "Call for Papers" is available. Just click on the banners below for more information.

Information about the MCPC 2007 Research & Innovation Conference at MIT:

Information about the MCPC 2007 Business Seminar at HEC:

All conference information is at http://www.mass-customization.de/mcpc07/

MCPC 2007 Montreal Business Seminar: An Extreme Makeover of Retail - Program online

Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics, and Mike Gray, Supply Chain Evangelist at Dell, Inc. to keynote MCPC 2007 business seminar

The second part of the MCPC 2007 will be in the form of a business seminar hosted by My Virtual Model, Inc., at HEC Montréal—Canada’s oldest business school. It addresses the application and implications of mass customization and personalization in retail. The business seminar is presented by MVM.com

An Extreme Makeover of Retail

Personalized advertising is transforming marketing, advertising and the media business. Virtual identity, product placement in games and movies, televisions and ads, social shopping and communities are driving and transforming forces in the market. How will merchants, brands and retailers address this new wave of interaction? The business seminar features the new breed of entrepreneurs: investors, advertisers and researchers in E-commerce, gaming industry leaders, TV and movie special effect providers and new media innovators in PDA, iPods, SMS, RSS feeds and even RFID.

Keynote Speakers at the MCPC 2007 Business Seminar

DON TAPSCOTT, Chief Executive of New Paradigm, Adjunct Professor of Management at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Don is an internationally renowned authority on the strategic value and impact of information technology. He has authored or co-authored eleven widely read books on technology and business, including his most recent Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, which will form the basis of his presentation. He is also the author of The Naked Corporation, Digital Capital and Growing Up Digital.

MIKE GRAY, Supply Chain Evangelist – Dell, Inc. With Dell for over 15 years, Mike is considered an expert on Dell’s unique approach to supply chain management. He has been a lead architect for many of the business processes that allow Dell to achieve its unprecedented levels of inventory while maintaining industry-leading customer service.

Mike Gray is a lifetime Certified Purchasing Manager (C.P.M.) with the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) and is also certified in Integrated Resource Management (CIRM) by APICS, the Association for Operations Management.

Don and Mike’s presentations are framed by four panel presentations. Experts, specialists and leaders scheduled to participate in the "Extreme Makeover of Retail" seminar include:

Sean Belka, Senior Vice President, Online Strategy for Fidelity Personal Investments(FPI), unit of Fidelity Investments

Robert Bonneau, President of Global Wine and Spirits

Lukasz Gadowski, President and Founder of Spreadshirt

Louise Guay, President and Founder of My Virtual Model

Philip Jacob, Founder of StyleFeeder, computer, programs architect and entrepreneur

Kirk Jones, Director, Nike ID Innovation

Michael Kahn, Vice President, Account Manager, double click performics.

Paul Miller, Senior Vice President Direct Commerce Sears Holdings Company

Jacques Nantele, Secretary General, HEC.

John G. Palfrey Jr., Clinical Professor of Law & Executive Director at The Berkman Center for the Internet and society at Harvard Law School

Frank Piller, Researcher & Author, Chair Professor of Management at RWTH Aachen University Germany, and Founding faculty member of the MIT Smart Customization Group

Sean Ryan, CEO of Meez

Christian Stegmaier, Head of Life Style, Reebok International Ltd

Jarmo Suominen, Professor of Mass Customization, Director of the Future Home Institute University of Art and Design Helsinki, Guest Researcher at the MIT.

Marybeth Thomson Luber, General Manager Custom Archetype Solutions Inc.

Paul Trevitchick, CEO and Co-Founder, Parity Communications Inc.

Joshua Young, Product Imaging Operations Manager of Nike Apparel US

Registration for the seminar and much more information here.

Context:

This business seminar is part of the MCPC 2007 World Conference that will take place from Oct 7-10 on the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA, USA, and from Oct 10-11 at the HEC Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The MCPC 2007 is the largest event in the field of mass customization and personalization. More information here.