Mass Customization & Open Innovation News

Full program of #MCPC2011 published: More than 150 Presentations on Mass Customization, Customer Co-Creation & Open Innovation

  

 Finally, the full conference program of the MCPC has been released. There still are a few things to update and exchange, but 95% of the program are fixed!

In addition to hundreds of CEOs, Founders, Directors, and Practice Leaders of the companies that apply and support mass customization, customer co-creation and open innovation successfully, many of the world's leading researchers in these areas will present latest findings in an accessible way.

The interactive conference format of the MCPC 2011, supported by the proximity to the Silicon Valley / Bay Area entrepreneurship and investment community, allows for deep interaction and networking between the participants. There are more than 150 presentations, panels, or workgroups on the program!

Join us in a lively exchange on best practices, case studies, success factors and open business models that focus on the top management and leadership issues and / or provide deep insights into specific design parameters of the tools and technologies behind open co-creation and mass customization.

Some selected topics of presentations and panels at the MCPC include:

- Setting up a mass customization business model;
- The market for mass customization;
- Defining a customer co-creation initiative that works;
- Managing customer-centric supply chains and fulfillment:
- Design elements of successful configuration toolkits;
- Metrics for open innovation;
- Implementing open innovation in an R&D organization;
- Learning from failures of the early pioneers;
- Getting VC investments for business models for MCP;
- Optimal incentives for internal and external participants;
- Getting corporate buy-in for customer co-design and OI;
- And much more!!

Before the main conference (Nov 18-19), a special business seminar provides executable frameworks for the management of mass customization and open innovation and a focused view on future topics.

Please register as soon as possible, as seats are limited and many are already taken! The conference hotel is conveniently located between San Francisco Airport (SFO) and Silicon Valley and allows for very efficient travel.

We hope to meet you in San Francisco in late Nov !

Frank Piller and Henry Chesbrough

MCPC 2011 Co-Chairs 

http://www.mcpc2011.com | MCPC2011 Full Program

 

Finally published: Handbook of Research in Mass Customization and Personalization - 1200 pages in 2 volumes on MCP

It was a long process in making, but now it finally has been published and I got the first volumes in my hand:

The Handbook of Research in Mass Customization and Personalization. Edited by Frank Piller and Mitchell Tseng. Published in two volumes. Volume 1: Strategies and Concepts; Volume 2: Applications and Cases. World Scientific Pub Co. (ISBN: 9814280259). Download an extensive overview of all chapter.

The book is the third in a series of publications that present the latest advancements in research on mass customization and personalization. Starting with Tseng & Piller (2003) and continuing with Piller, Reichwald & Tseng (2006), we again could collect the thinking of some of the leading scholars and practitioners in the field.

In comparison to the previous editions, this is the most comprehensive collection of writings on mass customization ever. This inspired our publisher to name it the "Handbook of Current Research in Mass Customization & Personalization". And it indeed is heavy and voluminous: Almost 1200 pages on MCP!

The contributions in this handbook were inspired by the 4th World Conference on Mass Customization and Personalization (MCPC 2007), hosted by the MIT Smart Customization Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in October 2007. The participant roster of the conference represented the interdisciplinary nature of customization and personalization drawing from a wide range of interest from hard core engineering, fashion design, architecture, retail, business strategy to psychology.

The papers in this book reflect this richness and scope. The authors come from diverse schools in leading research institutions as well as from business practice or consulting firms.

For an extensive overview and the full table of contents, download this PDF.

This is the publisher's site on the book (where you can get the book already) and here you can get it an Amazon. The book, however, has a heavy price tag and is more targeted to the library market. So recommend it to your library now!

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 !!

MCPC 2007: Final Call for Participation

This autumn, hundreds of the world's leading managers, entrepreneurs, researchers, authors, technology providers, and customization enthusiasts will descend upon the famous campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Join them at the Fourth MCPC World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC 2007, Cambridge/Boston, October 7th – 9th, 2007) to debate what's viable now, what did not work in the past, and what's lurking just below the radar. There's no better place to meet the people looking ahead to the future of customization, personalization, and user co-creation. The format is fast-paced, with 150+ speakers over three main days. A Business Seminar at HEC Montreal on October 11th will provide a focused top-management-view on mass customization in retail and the future of virtual identities. For conference information, schedule, and registration, head to mcpc2007.com.

Open Innovation Widget -- Fellowforce creates open line between users and companies

As of today organizations can integrate an widget into their websites to enable consumer-generated innovation, a solution to solicit ideas, suggestions and innovation proposals.

The widget has been developed by FellowForce. Their founder and Head of Marketing, Ruben Robert, will be a presenter at the MCPC 2007 conference.

In a press announcement, Jeff Crites from Fellowforce North America explains:

"We started our platform for Open Innovation two months ago, and since then we've received ideas and suggestions for leading brands worldwide. The idea for this new service is due in large part to a submission in our own innovation box. A Fellowforce 'Fellow', Marcel Heinkens of the Netherlands, suggested we offer an Open Innovation widget for websites. Today, four weeks later, we're introducing the 'Innovate Us' button, enabling any business to welcome ideas from a global force of innovators".

The 'Innovate Us' button is like a 'Digg-this' application for innovation, empowering and encouraging consumers to submit ideas to company controlled (Fellowforce enabled) innovation boxes. "We prefer to call them Innovation Boxes because consumer participation is more than just a feedback tool", adds Crites, "it's a driver for innovation. And for companies, this is like having a souped-up RSS aggregator to manage idea feeds."

What is the effect of such a widget?

Well, I think it is not largest innovation of innovation. But it is a great signal that companies are taking their users more and more seriously. Companies are making a statement that they believe in open innovation and value ideas from the outside. And I am curious to hear on Ruben's MCPC 2007 presentation how this will
work out.

Context: Have a look in the updated MCPC 2007 program to find more then 20 other presentations on open innovation: http://www.mcpc07.com/draft_program_MCPC2007.pdf

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.

CATER - Mass Customization in the Automotive Industry: New European Project Wants to Shift Auto Customization to a New Level

Free Workshop in Nice Will Present First Results on Sept. 11, 2007

CATER is a 3-year collaborative research project launched in September 2006 and supported by the European Commission aiming at developing innovative ICT tools and methods for mass customization of vehicles as well as new approaches to automotive design principles. The research consortium includes 14 major European and Asian organizations in the field ranging from vehicle manufacturers (VOLVO, FIAT), OEMs (IC:IDO, Imartis, etc.) to research centres and universities (Fraunhofer, CERTH, University of Nottingham, Nanyang Technological University, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, etc.).

CATER introduces systems and methodologies that go beyond the traditional approaches of automotive OEMs and in which design is driven by cross-cultural and emotional aspects of customer needs. This is enabled through integration of innovative ideas from diverse expertise of both Europe and Asia. The project also advocates networked business in the automotive field, aiming at a better integration of stakeholders (from OEMs to customers) within the supply chain, to support product planners and designers; while the customers can design their own vehicle via a VR interface in a 3D Web environment.

The image on the left illustrates the various expected benefits brought by CATER to the different stakeholders (click for full scale).

To reach its overall objective of enhancing MC in the automotive industry, CATER will develop according to its work program (see second picture on the left):

“- A semantic notation system, used by engineering teams addressing customers citarasa (Note: Citarasa is a Malay term that refers to emotional intent and aspirations).

- A citarasa engineering methodology, involving elicitation of customer expertise and citarasa in vehicle purchase, and mapping these to vehicle design by concurrent engineering team.

- A teardown database for product development & benchmark for both manufacturers & suppliers.

- A ‘Do-it-Yourself’ design system, powered by citarasa to support customers’ configuration tasks.

- A database architecture based on the previous components supporting the n-business paradigm.”

The CATER workshop

CATER is organizing its first dissemination workshop on September 11, 2007 in Nice (France) to present its first results as well as discuss the state-of-the-art in mass customization of vehicles.

Speakers from the automotive industry will introduce their views in the workshop with regard to new design and vehicle customization principles while several innovative aspects of the CATER project will be presented, such as: the Citarasa Engineering Approach (emotional design concepts), the Web Based Do-it-Yourself-Design system for self-customization of vehicles and VR Interfaces for the customers and the automotive manufacturers product planners, which are the main objectives of the project.

Participation is free but pre-registrations are compulsory.

Note: The MCPC 2007 conference at MIT in October 2007 also will feature a special track on mass customization in the automotive industry, including a presentation on this project.

MCPC 2007 -- Latest Program Information -- Registration Is Now Open

I did not blog for a while about the MCPC 2007 conference. But in the meantime, we did organize the program and really stepped forward in making this conference happen.

Here are some general information on the conference. In the coming weeks, I will feature in individual postings some special presentations that will be given at the event!

The 2007 World Conference of Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC 2007) will become a high profile and truly interactive event for the mass customization research and practice community on the MIT campus on Oct. 8 and 9, 2007. On Oct 11, a special business seminar will be held in Montreal.

(1) Program Overview

Our program committee selected from the submissions of more than 400 authors about 150 papers and proposals for presentation at the conference. Besides the latest research on mass customization, personalization, and related topics like user innovation, we are very glad that also a large number of managers from leading companies will share their success stories and challenges from running a MCP business.

In addition, we will have academic keynotes of several top MIT researchers, including
- Eric von Hippel (Sloan School of Management),
- Marvin Minsky (“inventor” of artificial intelligence), and
- William Mitchell (Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Media Lab).

Also the expert who made mass customization known and developed the original concept in detail, B. Joseph Pine II, plans to attend and keynote the conference.

In total, we will have much more than 200 participants on the program!

The business seminar on Oct. 11 in Montreal -- a one-day focused event of high-profile invited management presentations -- gets in great shape in the moment. We will have companies like Dell, Google, Rebook, Nike, Fidelity, among many others, presenting their latest customization and personalization initiatives. Montreal is an easy 4-5 hour drive away from Boston; and the trip though the New England Indian Summer should be a great experience at this time.

More information on the Montreal program will follow very soon in a separate posting. Please make your own travel arrangements, there is no central group travel organized by the conference.

(2) Registration

Conference registration is now open online.

Participants can register until the beginning of the conference. On-Site registration is possible as well. The early registration discount however ends on Sept 1, 2007 !! You can either register for the MIT event only or enjoy a special discount when registering for the Montreal business seminar as well.

(3) Program and Scheduling

The final program will be ready at the end of August once we have the feedback and commitment by all authors to come and present. General presentations will be scheduled either on Oct 8 (between 10.15-6.15) or on Oct 9 (between 10.15-4.45).

The MCPC 2007 will start with our opening keynote session on Sunday, Oct 7, at around 3:30pm, followed by an opening reception. Earlier on this day, there will be s special interactive workshop program. More information on this will follow soon.

The MIT part of the conference ends on Oct 9 with a closing keynote panel at about 6pm.

The Montreal part will start on Oct 10 with an evening reception and go until Oct 11 night.

(4) Sponsorship Opportunities and MIT Smart Customization Group

If your organization, company, or consultancy is interested in supporting the MCPC 2007 conference at MIT and exhibit your services, products, or MC offerings during the conference, please contact Betty Lou McClanahan who will discuss any possible arrangement with you (contact data at the end of the posting).

Also, for corporations who want to continue to work with MIT after the conference, the MIT Smart Customization Group, part of the MIT Design Lab, is a great initiative to join. You find more information on this group here: http://design.mit.edu/smartcustomization/

There will be a special information session on the MIT Smart Customization Group during the conference, and again Betty Lou is glad to discuss any options of working with MIT students and researchers on mass customization.

(5) Hotel Booking

On the conference web site, you find a list with hotels. We got a special room block at the Marriot Cambridge, which is just on the MIT Campus.

Also, the Renaissance Cambridge and the Kendall Hotel are within steps from the conference site. The Hotel Marlone, the Royal Sonesta, and the Hotel@MIT are in easy walking distance (<10 min.). As October is a busy season in Boston, hotel prices are not cheap. So as an alternative, you may want to stay in a cheaper motel outside Boston (e.g., at Route 1 north of Boston) and drive to the campus (parking is available at public garages for about 15-20 $/day).

Or check Craigslist where you may find a cheap room sublet (listings for Oct will not be in before mid of Sept).

There also is a helpful site at MIT with guest houses and B&Bs.

Context: MCPC 2007 contacts and more information:

Registration and Payments:
Nicole Silva
MIT Conference Services
Phone: 617-253-0116
Fax: 617-258-7005
Email: conferences-www AT mit.edu

Sponsorship and Organization:
Betty Lou McClanahan
Program Manager, MIT Media Laboratory
20 Ames Street, Room E15-228
Cambridge, MA 02142-1308, USA
Phone: 617-253-0630,
Fax: 617-258-6264
E-Mail: bl AT media.mit.edu

Abstract / Paper Updates and Modifications:
Dina Franzen
RWTH Aachen University, TIM Group
Phone: +49 241 809 3577
Fax: +49 241 809 2367
Email: franzen AT tim.rwth-aachen.de

Program Planning and All Other Questions:
Frank T Piller
RWTH Aachen University, TIM Group
Phone: +49 241 809 3577
Fax: +49 241 809 2367
Email: pillerAT tim.rwth-aachen.de

MCPC 2007 Paper Submission System Finally Online -- Submit Your Proposal to Speak at MIT until April 2, 2007

The 2007 World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC) at MIT (Boston, USA) and HEC Montreal (Canada), October 7-12, 2007

Finally, and with some delay, the submission system for the MCPC 2007 is ready and online. You can now submit your speaking proposals for the upcoming World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC) -- the premier event in this area.

Bridging academic research and management practice, the conference provides an interactive and interdisciplinary platform to share ideas about mass customization strategies and to discuss the latest technologies and enablers.

For the first part of the conference, taking part on the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA (Boston area), we invite submissions and speaking proposals. The conference is designed to engage academics, business leaders and consultants in fundamental debates through a set of plenary presentations, discussion panels, and paper presentations.

We especially welcome submissions from managers and consultants reflecting upon the conference theme.

Download the most important conference info as PDF: the call for papers and a checklist with all information how to prepare your submission.

You can submit two types of papers:

Full papers: Max 25 pages (12pt font, double line spacing). Only full papers will be considered for the conference's Best Paper Award.

Extended abstracts: For work in progress (about 4-8 pages), but including also comments on the research question, the methodology, data and empirical methods used (if applicable), and discussion of the results.

To submit a paper (practitioners: presentation proposal), please use ONLY the online submission system on the conference web site (www.mcpc2007.com). All papers will be double-blind reviewed.

Important dates

April 2, 2007: Deadline for submissions (extended)
June 1, 2007: Final notification of accepted contributions
Oct 7-9, 2007: MCP Research & Innovation Conference at MIT
Oct 11-12, 2007: Business Seminar in Montreal

For the 2007 conference, we invite submissions for many different topics and themes in the field of mass customization and open innovation:. The following topics are just some examples:

Mass customization in practice

This track is open for submission of acting managers and entrepreneurs from mass customization and personalization businesses. We ask for presentations which do not focus on presenting just your company or business idea, but on sharing your experiences and success factors of executing mass customization.

Presentation proposals for this track should follow the general guidelines for submission (extended proposal introducing your mass customization offering, the focus of your talk, and some of the key results you plan to present). Proposals should be submitted with the online submission system.

Mass Customization Case Studies (Teaching)

The MCPC 2007 will be followed by a special session in Montreal focused on case studies for mass customization. The idea is to develop material to teach mass customization better. We invite submissions of case studies dealing with mass customization and personalization. Cases must be original work based on real events, people, and organizations. They must be accompanied by a teaching note and not have been previously published or accepted for publication. The presentation of the cases will be held in Montreal on October 12, 2007. Authors of the best cases will be invited to submit their work to a special issue of the International Journal of Mass Customization or a special issue of the International Journal of Case Studies in Management. Cases should be submitted with the online submission system and authors must follow the MCPC paper submission process and deadlines.

Special Sessions

Today, there are examples and applications of MCP in all industries and sectors. The MCPC 2007 does not focus on one particular industry, but wants to provide a platform to exchange ideas beyond disciplines and industry borders. We are however especially interested in applications and examples in the following fields where we recently see a lot of interesting momentum in MCP:

* Mass customization, personalization and user innovation in architecture, housing and construction
* Automotive Customization 3.0: Bridging pimped rides with option lists
* Mass customization of services, e.g., in the financial and hospitality industries
* Mass customization of health services & products (pharma-cogenetics)
* Extreme customizing: What can we learn from extreme, leading edge examples of customization and personalization.

But there are also many other tracks which provide plenty of opportunities to discuss your knowledge in the field.

Context information:
- Full call for papers with all information.
- Checklist with all information how to prepare and upload your submission.
- Previous posts with MCPC information.

Automotive Customization 2.0: The MIT City Car project

The MIT City Car project was one of the initiators to host the upcoming MCPC 2007 World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization at MIT. Coordinated by the MIT Media Lab, this project looks into the future of the car. And this future is much more than faster engines, a futuristic shell or more entertainment features in the car, but it is all about delivering a highly personalized mobility solution.

The main idea: The future of the car is a shopping cart. Well, a very special shopping cart. Sponsored by General Motors Corp., a team lead by MCPC 2007 conference chair William Mitchell and MCPC 2007 coordinator Ryan Chin, is building a prototype of a lightweight electric vehicle that can be cheaply mass-produced, rented by commuters under a shared-use business model, and folded and stacked like grocery carts at subway stations or other central sites.

The Boston Globe recently published a nice update about this project, and also has a great interactive graphic on its site that explains the concept. “Dreamers have been reinventing the wheel since the days of cave dwellers. But the work underway in "the Cube," the Media Lab's basement studio, may be the most ambitious remake yet.”, Globe writer Robert Weisman reports in this article.

The main idea to totally redesign the car was to move everything what today drives and controls the car into the wheels. Embedded in each of its four wheels will be an electric motor, steering and braking mechanisms, suspension, and digital controls, all integrated into sealed units that can be snapped on and off. With this design, the rest of the car can be designed totally new from the sketch. By removing as much hardware from the car as possible, a totally new design is possible.

The main visible feature is the car’s stackability. The idea is that you do not own a car, but just take one within a city when you need it – a modern interpretation of the (perfect) Boston based car sharing service ZIP car or Germany’s “Call-a-bike” system. As space is often a constrain in the city, cars will be foldable away to occupy as little space as possible when not in use. It is much easier to see than to explain how this will work, so have a look at this interactive graphic.

But the MIT team still recognized that cars often are an object of personal impression and more than just a seat in a public transportation system. This is where personalization comes into this system. . "We think of the car as a big mobile computer with wheels on it," Ryan is quoted in the Globe article. "This car should have a lot of computational power. It should know where the potholes are." And it also knows how you like your car. Once you have rented a car, the software that sets passenger preferences, changes the color of the cabin, controls the dashboard look and feel, and even directs drivers to their popular parking spaces next to their destination.

As the MIT researchers envision it, the City Car won't replace private cars or mass transit systems but ease congestion by enabling shared transportation in cities. Commuters could use them for one-way rentals, swiping their credit cards to grab a City Car from the front of a stack at a central point such as a school, day-care center, or office building. "What you'll be buying is mobility," Chin said.

"The existing infrastructures can't support the population growth that we're seeing, so we're going to have to find viable alternative vehicles like the one MIT is designing," Rebecca Lindland, director of automotive research at Global Insight in Lexington, is quoted in the Boston Globe article.

The MIT City Car concept transfers a piece of hardware into a product-service-system that delivers a truly customized service as a bundle of products and service components, some mass produced, some adaptable, some customized for each user. The first real working prototype of this car is scheduled for presentation on the MCPC 2007 conference. "I think we'll be driving it around the interior of our building," Chin said, "and hopefully ask the MIT police to let us drive it around a parking lot."

In a dedicated track on this conference, we invite researchers and managers to discuss this concept and present their own visions of the custom car of the future. (http://www.mcpc2007.com). In general, the idea of product-service-systems is a promising option for many customization offerings in several industries:

- Why not add a custom training plan to your custom sports shoe? (a great example for this is the Nike Plus Personalization program)
- Customization of cell phones may not only include a custom cover or your personal ring tone, but a service that configures your phone to your profiles, adds your phone books – and comes with your personal service plan that adjusts the pricing structure to your personal need.

2007 Mass Customization Event Preview (I): MCPC 2007 Web Site Launched

The World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC) is the primary event in this domain. Bridging between academic research and management practice, the conference provides an interactive platform to learn about mass customization strategies and to discuss the latest technologies and enablers.

On October 7, 2007, the fourth MCPC will start at the MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge / Boston with an interdisciplinary focus on the new advancements in the field (Oct. 7-10, 2007). The second part of the conference, hosted by HEC (Hautes Études Commerciales) Business School in Montreal, will address in the form of a business seminar the challenges to bring mass customization and personalization in retail (Oct. 11-12, 2007).

Today, we finally could finish the first version of the MCPC 2007 web site. Go there to get all details how you can contribute to this event and present your mass customization work or research.

I will keep you updated on all developments and news regarding the conference. The teams at MIT and HEC are working very hard in the moment to get the conference running. More exciting news will come in the next weeks.

More MCPC 2007 information:
- Download MCPC 2007 Flyer
- Download MCPC 2007 Call for Papers & Speaking Proposals
- Website: http://www.mass-customization.de/mcpc07/

Context information: In June 2007, Thorsten Blecker organizes again the Joint Conference of IMCM’07 & PETO’07 (June 21-22, 2007, Hamburg/Germany): "Innovative Processes and Products for Mass Customization”, a research focused smaller event on mass customization in Hamburg (more information here). While I personally only endorse the MCPC 2007 and believe that one focused general MC event is sufficient and more beneficial, I am of course happy about any platform for sharing information on mass customization. But I consider special tracks and sessions as part of established general conferences (like POMS, INFORMS, AOM, etc.) and national events (like the FiMCP event) as the more efficient and effective ways for such a discussion outside the MCPC conferences.

But if you understand German, you don't have to wait until October 2007. In February 2007, the next German-language business seminar on mass customization will take place in beautiful Salzburg. More information on this national event in the next posting.

MCPC 2007: How you can participate at THE mass customization event of 2007

Call for Papers and Pre-Announcements of the 2007 World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization

Finally, more information about the MCPC 2007. The most important message of this long posting: Save your time and travel budget for Oct 7-12, 2007! At this time, the next World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC) will take place at MIT in Boston and HEC in Montreal – and it will become THE event of the MC event circuit.

We are in the moment in the heavy planning stage of the event here at MIT, but I want to share some more information here so that you can start thinking what YOU want to present on the MCPC!

The event: The biannual World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC) is the premier event for the Mass Customization community. Bridging academic research and management practice, the conference provides an interactive and interdisciplinary platform to share ideas about mass customization strategies and to discuss the latest technologies and enablers.

Download MCPC 2007 Flyer

In October 2007, the MCPC will include two parts:

Part 1, Oct 7-10, 2007: MCP Research & Innovation Conference. Hosted by the MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge/Boston (USA) with an interdisciplinary focus on the new advancements in the field.

The MCP Research & Innovation Conference is designed to engage academics, business leaders and consultants in fundamental debates through a set of plenary presentations, discussion panels, and paper presentations. In addition to the traditional functional conference streams of the MCPC conferences, we especially welcome submissions from managers and consultants reflecting upon the conference theme.

Part 2, Oct 11-12, 2007: MCP Business Seminar hosted by HEC (Haute Études Commerciales) Business School in Montreal (Canada), with a focus on applying mass customization & personalization in a retail setting.

The MCP Business Seminar wants to provide managers a practice-orientated, focused overview on mass customization applications and best practices. The 2007 topic is the application of customization & personalization in retail – leading to a total makeover of retail!

2007 Conference Theme: The objective of the MCPC 2007 is to extend the dialogue beyond today's boundaries and to explore the future of MCP. The theme "Extreme Customization" asks for leading-edge examples of customization, non-traditional and emerging new concepts of personalization. For the technology community, we attempt to identify critical research issues and technological challenges with a rigorous methodology.

Our manifesto is to shift the mass customization debate from a physical product perspective to a total life cycle experience. Mass customization should be more than just configuring a piece of hardware, but should be seen as the co-design of an entire system, including services, experiences and human satisfaction at the individual as well as at the community level.

Continuing the established MCPC tradition, we invite contributions from a wide range of specialists in the engineering and management community including architecture, industrial design, or visual arts, to participate in the larger debate of customization. Mass customization studios, a co-creation challenge, and several focused workshops will elevate the quality of exchange during the conference.

Questions for Discussion in the MCPC 2007. To start the discussion, here are some initial themes and related questions. We encourage participants and authors to engage in these questions and to bring forth their experiences from an interdisciplinary and cross-functional perspective.

System thinking and architectures

How can we design system architectures, extending the discussion of product families?
How can we define ecosystems for mass customization which span the entire product life cycle?
How does system thinking in MCP enable firms to search for new and underutilized opportunities?
What new kinds of capabilities do we need to produce, sell, and maintain MCP systems?

Business models for mass customization

How do we have to adapt, modify or expand established models in marketing and operations management to cover the new debate on mass customization? When do we need new models?
What are the different business models for mass customization? What are the contingency factors describing the preference for such a strategy?
Have we fully utilized postponement strategies for MCP?

Product versus service customization

What is mass customization of service? How is this different from product customization?
What are successful examples of service mass customization which go beyond the conventional, e.g., self-service kiosks?
What are the features of configuration toolkits for service customization?
What are efficient production systems for service customization?

Adaptability: feature or substitute

Adaptability, i.e. built-in flexibility embedded in a product, can both substitute customization delivered by flexible manufacturing or supplement the inherent flexibility of a customized product. How can we develop adaptable systems along the entire life cycle of a product-service-system?
How can we make products more adaptable ("hackable") so that users can adapt them?
What are the economies of adaptability? How to balance the trade-off between performance (cost) and adaptable capabilities?
How to design usable interfaces to utilize a product's adaptable features?

Individual versus community

What is the role of communities for mass customization?
Is personalization exclusive or non-exclusive of shared experiences?
How do online and offline communities effect customization (e.g., by setting trends, helping each other with the configuration, etc.)?
How do communities develop new mass customization offerings?

Emotion, experiences and happiness

Can you mass customize for emotions? How can we capture emotions in product-service-systems?
How does research on emotions help to build better products and services?
What is the premium customers are willing to pay for different experiences along the segments of the MCP product life cycle (e.g., willingness to pay for configuration, co-design, status, custom utility, adaptability, etc.)?
Does mass customization provide "happiness" to consumers (and what is happiness anyway)?

Choice, complexity and simplicity

What is meaningful customization? What are the rules for simplicity in MCP?
Do people want choice? How much is too much?
How can we support users to navigate a solution space?
How do we foster and utilize the creativity of users and customers?

Configuration system and rule sets

How can we change configurators from focusing on constraints and rules to fostering creativity and co-creation?
How can we expand user interfaces with more tangible and intuitive features?
How can we develop embedded configurators?
How can we substitute the pain of customization for the sales force by building integrated sales systems for customization, including the knowledge, tools, and attitudes for efficient customization?

Rapid manufacturing and personal fabricators

What is the state of innovative manufacturing concepts allowing flexibility with no cost penalty?
Where is mass customization manufacturing located (distributed versus centralized)?
Is rapid manufacturing here (to stay)? Is rapid prototyping becoming obsolete?
Are there alternative approaches for efficient flexible manufacturing?

Contradictions in mass customization

What is the relationship of simplicity to complexity in MCP?
What is the tipping point between standardization and customization?
What is the range between user innovation and custom configuration? When, and to which extent, do users customize and manufacture in their own domain and with their own means?
What is the relation of constraints in manufacturing (switching costs) to constraints coming from the entire environment (e.g., health and safety, branding, IP …)?
Are all customers suited for mass customization? Is mass customization suited for any business?

Profits, benefits, and value

What is the benefit and value of MCP? How does this benefit translate to value for individual stakeholders (customers, manufacturer, or retailers)? How can we capture this value from the perspective of an entire system?
How do we measure the value of personalization and customization?

Education & capabilities for MCP

How do we educate students in mass customization? How do we integrate mass customization thinking in established curricula (in a meaningful way)? (See also the call for teaching case studies below.)
How do we build the qualifications and capabilities demanded for mass customization in companies?
How can managers (and educators) unlearn conventional thinking when implementing mass customization?

Mass customization in practice

This track is open for submission of acting managers and entrepreneurs from mass customization and personalization businesses. We ask for presentations which do not focus on presenting just your company or business idea, but on sharing your experiences and success factors of executing mass customization.
Presentation proposals for this track should follow the general guidelines for submission (extended proposal introducing your mass customization offering, the focus of your talk, and some of the key results you plan to present). Proposals should be submitted with the online submission system.

Mass Customization Case Studies (Teaching)

The MCPC 2007 will be followed by a special session in Montreal focused on case studies for mass customization. The idea is to develop material to teach mass customization better.
We invite submissions of case studies dealing with mass customization and personalization. Cases must be original work based on real events, people, and organizations. They must be accompanied by a teaching note and not have been previously published or accepted for publication. The presentation of the cases will be held in Montreal on October 12, 2007. Authors of the best cases will be invited to submit their work to a special issue of the International Journal of Mass Customization or a special issue of the International Journal of Case Studies in Management. Cases should be submitted with the online submission system and authors must follow the MCPC paper submission process and deadlines.

Special Sessions & Themes

Today, there are examples and applications of MCP in all industries and sectors. The MCPC 2007 does not focus on one particular industry, but wants to provide a platform to exchange ideas beyond disciplines and industry borders. We are however especially interested in applications and examples in the following fields where we recently see a lot of interesting momentum in MCP:
- Mass customization, personalization and user innovation in architecture, housing and construction
- Automotive Customization 3.0: Bridging pimped rides with option lists
- Mass customization of services, e.g., in the financial and hospitality industries
- Mass customization of health services & products (pharma-cogenetics)
- Extreme customizing: What can we learn from extreme, leading edge examples of customization and personalization?

Paper Submission Process

We invite you to submit your best work on mass customization and related areas, addressing one or more of the questions asked before. All papers have to be written in English language. We prefer papers which are empirically grounded and go beyond pure conceptual contributions. We are open to a diverse set of quantitative and qualitative methods of empirical research. We especially seek papers which follow the idea of "engaged scholarship", i.e. which are relevant to both practice and research.

You can submit two types of papers (Page limits include references and figures):
Full papers: max. 25 pages (12pt font, double line spacing). Only full papers will be considered for the conference's Best Paper Award.
Extended abstracts for work in progress (about 4-8 pages), but including also comments on the research question, the methodology, data and empirical methods used (if applicable), and a discussion of the results.

The conference proceedings will contain short abstracts of all accepted papers. Authors of accepted papers can decide if they submit a (revised) version of their full paper for publication in the full-text proceedings of the conference, or just a summary version which does not compromise publication of the paper in top journals.

A number of highly respected academic journals expressed already their interest in featuring special issues with selected conference papers after the conference. We will try to facilitate this process for appropriate submissions.

To submit a paper (practitioners: presentation proposal), there will be an online submission system for this conference on the conference web site. Please wait with paper submissions until this system in installed and in place. Do not submit papers per e-mail directly to the conference chairs. All papers will be double-blind reviewed.

Important dates

March 19, 2007: Deadline for submissions
June 1, 2007: Final notification of accepted contributions
Aug. 1, 2007: Author registration deadline
Oct 7-9, 2007: MCP Research & Innovation Conference at MIT
Oct 11-12, 2007: Business Seminar in Montreal, Quebec

Note: ALL presenters and participants, including presenters from companies, have to register for the conference and pay the full registration fee (about 450 USD, 50% discount for students with student ID). There are no exceptions.

MCPC 2007 Program Committee – MIT Research Conference
Conference Chair: William Mitchell, MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Conference Program Co-Chairs: Frank Piller, TUM Business School, Technische Universität München, and Mitchell Tseng, Advanced Manufacturing Institute, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
Conference Coordinator: Ryan Chin, MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MCPC 2007 Program Committee – HEC Montreal Business Seminar
Conference Chair: Jacques Nantel, HEC (Haute Études Commerciales) Business School, Montreal (Canada)
Conference Coordinators: Sylvain Sénécal and Jean-Francois Ouellet, HEC Business School, Montreal

More information:
- Download MCPC 2007 Flyer
- Past conferences: MCPC 2005 (Hong Kong) and MCPC 2003 (Munich)

Conference Report MCPC 2005: Learnings and Observations from the 3rd MCP World Conference

The Third Interdisciplinary World Congress on Mass Customization and Personalization (MCPC 2005): Converging Mass Customization and Mass Production (Hong Kong, 18-21 Sept. 2005)

The MCPC conference series is the largest international event to address Mass Customization and Personalization (MCP) from a multidisciplinary perspective. Like the earlier events in Hong Kong (2001) and Munich (2003), the 2005 conference assembled again an international community of scholars and managers to discuss latest achievements in the field.

If you missed this event, you can download the full abstracts of all papers from the website (www.mcpc2005.com). There is also an order form to mail-order the full text proceedings (on CD Rom), containing more than 800 pages of research papers, case studies and reports (price: 95 USD, credit card orders at the conference administrators at Hong Kong Univ of Science and Technology).

Here some of my observations from the conference:

Participants: I was very pleased that this time we could increase the share of practitioners to more than 50 percent of participants. Among them, a number of large US consumer good companies had sent representatives to observe the conference and to get feedback for own upcoming initiatives. We will see a number of exciting new custom offerings in the next year.

Case study track: There was a very strong case study track this year. This provided great insight into the scope and diversity of mass customization. There is not one mass customization concept, but many forms and structures. As a result, we had several parallel conservations about the same term (see here for my recent revision of my mass customization definition).

The apparel people are already very advanced in their application and discussion of the concept. We had some very large Chinese apparel manufacturers and the main technology providers under the participants. For them, mass customization is already a commodity you just have to have to stay in business. But mass customization here is not only about serving individual consumers with custom clothes.

Just consider mass customization on a retail level. Powerful retailers nowadays demand that they get a different assortment of brand merchandise than their main competitors. They demand special editions or variants which can be only bought in their stores. One reason is to prevent direct price competition and to become less comparable. Another important reason is to get also an assortment that fits better to local preferences and trends. Leading brands and manufacturers react on this trend by offering mass customization programs on the retail level. Here, not an end-consumer customizes her custom garment, but a retailer’s representative. Products are produced on demand, and in a small lot size.

In other industries, mass customization is still on a much more abstract level. One small, but very interesting track of the MCPC 2005 focused for example on mass customization in architecture. While many buildings are custom designed per definition, owner or user participation in the design process is just starting. Also, manufacturing in this industry is characterized by rather small and decentralized suppliers. Terms like product platforms, commonality, or interaction toolkits are just being discovered in this industry.

The market for customization: The conference could still provide no answer on the question about the market size of mass customization. Once again, the conference showed that we can not apply traditional market research and forecasting to predict the market size for mass customized offerings. Most customers have no experience with this model, and so they have to experience real offerings of mass customization before they can decide about their acceptance of this model and their willingness-to-pay it. Mass customization remains trial-and-error.

Mass customization demands critical mass: There was a lot of talk about dedicated competences and capabilities for mass customization. Research is progressing in this field, and we discussed the results of several studies and research projects focusing on the unique set of capabilities mass customization requires. I will report in upcoming contributions for this newsletter in more details about the specific capabilities mass customization requires. But: Conference participants agreed that the required competence set is large, and that as a result mass customization demands critical mass – it is otherwise too demanding.

But is seems that customer integration competence is key. The ability to interact with customers efficiently in order to understand their preferences and transfer them into an individual offering is seen as the main cost driver of mass customization (as a result, the system also should be initiated by the actor with access to final customer).

The factor balancing a mass customization system is the selection of the degree of variability (customization options). This decision effects all following decisions. A mass customizing firm gets a main competitive advantage when it has a detailed mechanism how to set and maintain this optimal degree of customization.

Collaboration and interdisciplinary research: And a final conclusion by many participants: To make mass customization happen, we have to cooperate and build multi-disciplinary teams … this conference was all about this! It was a great pleasure to have some many disciplines and backgrounds at one place. Our community of practice is growing – and I am looking forward already to the next meeting.

More information:

The MCPC 2005 web site
Download the program and abstracts of all presentations
Order the conference proceedings here
Report about the China study tour which took part after the conference.
A picture album with conference photos

Mass Customization in China: China as a market and manufacturing place for customized goods -- The example of Youngor -- Learnings from the China MCPC Workshop and Study Tour

After the MCPC 2005 conference (http://www.mcpc2005.com), about 40 of our participants went to a three day field trip to China. This was a great experience. During a workshop at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou we could discuss with 50 Chinese business people, consultants and scholars about the state of mass customization in China, both as a market and as a manufacturing location for customized goods. A company visit at Youngor, a Chinese apparel manufacturer, demonstrated a very far advanced mass customization manufacturing and sales operations. And the beauty of the Hangzhou landscape and its lake impressed all of us.

China as a market for customized goods

China is such a large local market with a more and more heterogeneous consumer base. While in many segments still the focus is on fulfilling early demand in local households, other segments, mostly in the large eastern cities, have already a large and sophisticated consumer base. The increasing chasm between income levels creates two more or less separated markets form many goods. Companies like Youngor (see below) target with their mass customization offerings the upper end of the market. Here, demand for customization may be strong according to a number of cultural specialties of Chinese culture:

(1) China has a long tradition in craftsmanship, providing the country both high flexibility and a highly skilled workforce, but also a dedication of some customers regarding highly personalized service.

(2) Crowded cities and communities: Society is still rather uniform but changing fast into a way where uniqueness is honored and appreciated, so customization has a special appeal to many (especially younger) consumers.

(3) Food culture: The Chinese cuisine is highly regional and customized to specific tastes; many Chinese people are highly sensitive to shop for their favorite dish. This may also encourage them to adopt or even demand custom offerings.

And there is weak evidence that China is already moving towards customization: Car manufacturers report that since 2004, more and more cars for the consumer market are not made-to-stock, but are being configured and made-to-order (still not conceivable in the US car market!). Haier, a large manufacturer of appliances, offered already in 2002 customizable refrigerators. While this offering flopped in the consumer market due to a lack of an adequate front-end, it became a hit in the retail market where retailers can order custom versions to differentiate themselves from local competition. And Youngor (see below) has introduced mass customization of suits to the Chinese market at a price point of about 320 Euro / 378 USD a piece.

China as a manufacturer for customized goods

Most often, China is however discussed in western countries as a manufacturing place for custom goods. While there is a large debate if logistic disadvantages would not favor local manufacturing of custom goods close to the markets, several western brands are sourcing the custom goods from China: Most custom sneakers and fashion shoes are produced in Guangzhou for the US and European market, Also, several large US brands like Nordstorm, Polo Ralph Lauren or Tommy Hilfinger are producing some of their custom garments in China.

This trend my increase. China has shown in the past years that its main capability is to build lacking infrastructure very fast. In addition, it can counterbalance coordination demands and complexity handling still with cheap human labor (in one factory which I visited before the conference, almost each single custom order was coordinated and tracked by an individual worker – an easy way to balance the lack of an ERP or MRP system).

But more importantly, Chinese factory managers show no resistance to switch to custom manufacturing if they see a profit opportunity. In many industries, the steadily decreasing order size of standard variants has increased the flexibility and switching capabilities of manufacturers anyway. In addition, the organization of Chinese manufacturing around local industry clusters supports customization perfectly as all players along the value chain are in close proximity to each others.

Most impressing was a visit a Youngor, one of the largest Chinese manufacturers for apparel, including an own custom apparel operations. Youngor produces about 60% of its garments for the local market. It’s suit manufacturing capacity is about 2 mio pieces p.a., and within this segment, custom suits are the strongest growth factor, targeting about 15% of the total capacity. The suits are sold in about 100 of 2000 retail stores owned by the company in China and Japan, using a simple, but clever measurement system combining traditional tape and an easy procedure to set reference points.

The retail price is between 1200 and 5000 RMB (about 150-600 USD), quite a heavy price tag for the Chinese market. Production took place in a very modern, integrated production facility in Ningbo at the corporate headquarters. Individual cuts are calculated in a CAD room, cutting is performed on modern single-ply cutters, sewing operations are performed to a large extend within the normal line producing also standard garments.

I was also very very much impressed the executive manager introducing us to this system. Han Yong Sheng, Vice General Manager and CTO of Youngor, provided a very insightful introduction into mass customization which was very much ahead of the state of discussion beyond many western manufacturers. He shared a great vision of the potentials and challenges of mass customization, and seemed 100% confident in what he was doing and planning. For mass customization, this is a bright future. For western manufacturing, not.