"Times and Sunday Times websites to start charging from June"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/26/times-website-paywall
Friday, March 26, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
The issue of definition
It is time to come back to the origin of my research and to have a look at the concept of Mass Customization. I will give a general introduction to the concept before going into specifics again.
Mass Customization evolved out of the post-Fordism movement, which is part of Postmodernism. The concept of Mass Customization is a movement away from producing standardized products as it is the case in Mass Production.
Mass Customization aims to combine craft production of customized goods and mass production of low-priced goods. However, the literature of Mass Customization emphasizes that this concept only works, if it is supported by new technologies and ways of communication.
Mass Customization has been discussed since 1987 and until today the definitions of Mass Customization vary between authors.
Tseng and Jiao defined Mass Customization in 2001 as corresponding to
Gilmore and Pine define the term through their ‘Four Faces of Mass Customization’ quite broadly, whereas Paul Zipkin would offer a more narrow definition of the concept. This lack of conceptual boundaries is according to Piller (2004) the reason why Mass Customization has not really taken off yet, but is rather a way of doing business for a more innovative group of firms.
There is also a grey area where it is difficult to distinguish between variety of Mass Production and Mass Customization.
This becomes obvious when comparing Gilmore and Pine’s Adaptive Approach and Paul Zipkin’s paper on the 'Limits of Mass Customization'. It becomes apparent that Zipkin’s configurable product as a form of Mass Production is what Gilmore and Pine would call the Adaptive Approach, which is one face in the ‘Four Faces of Mass Customization’.
In more recent articles by Piller this change from Mass Production to Mass Customization is represented as a process rather than an 'idealized state' that has to be achieved. Most importantly he identifies different capabilities that a company has to develop and continuously improve on in order to mass customize.
It is time to come back to the origin of my research and to have a look at the concept of Mass Customization. I will give a general introduction to the concept before going into specifics again.
Mass Customization evolved out of the post-Fordism movement, which is part of Postmodernism. The concept of Mass Customization is a movement away from producing standardized products as it is the case in Mass Production.
Mass Customization aims to combine craft production of customized goods and mass production of low-priced goods. However, the literature of Mass Customization emphasizes that this concept only works, if it is supported by new technologies and ways of communication.
Mass Customization has been discussed since 1987 and until today the definitions of Mass Customization vary between authors.
Tseng and Jiao defined Mass Customization in 2001 as corresponding to
the technologies and systems to deliver goods and services that meet individual customers’ needs with near mass production efficiency. (Piller, 2004)
Gilmore and Pine define the term through their ‘Four Faces of Mass Customization’ quite broadly, whereas Paul Zipkin would offer a more narrow definition of the concept. This lack of conceptual boundaries is according to Piller (2004) the reason why Mass Customization has not really taken off yet, but is rather a way of doing business for a more innovative group of firms.
There is also a grey area where it is difficult to distinguish between variety of Mass Production and Mass Customization.
This becomes obvious when comparing Gilmore and Pine’s Adaptive Approach and Paul Zipkin’s paper on the 'Limits of Mass Customization'. It becomes apparent that Zipkin’s configurable product as a form of Mass Production is what Gilmore and Pine would call the Adaptive Approach, which is one face in the ‘Four Faces of Mass Customization’.
In more recent articles by Piller this change from Mass Production to Mass Customization is represented as a process rather than an 'idealized state' that has to be achieved. Most importantly he identifies different capabilities that a company has to develop and continuously improve on in order to mass customize.
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