Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition

The mass production ot standardized goods was the source of America’s economic strength for generations and became the model for successful industries. Today, that model is a major cause of the nation’s declining competitiveness. In the turbulent business environment that characterizes many industries, it no longer works. As Joseph Pine shows in this work, innovative companies are embracing a new paradigm of management - mass customization - that allows them to create greater variety and customization in their products and services at competitive prices, or better. New ways of managing, together with new technology, make possible the seeming paradox of providing each customer with the tailor-made benefits of the pre-industrial craft system at the low costs of modern mass production. Companies have discovered mass customization are outpacing their competitors in gaining customers and higher margins. This work explains mass customization in its historical context; reviewing the history of production in America, it demonstrates why mass production cannot work in turbulent industries and outlines how new forms of competition have led to greater variety and customization. Based on academic and field research, it analyzes and comments on when and how managers in both service and manufacturing industries can make the transition to mass customization. Pine details the strategies, methods, and organizational transformations required to develop, produce, market and deliver individually customized goods and services, and shows managers how to analyze their own industries to determine if they should shift to mass customization.