Mass Customization
Discussion Board Forum 1
BUSI 650-BO8
Liberty University
September 4, 2016
Key Concept Explanation
Personal interests in the profession of customer service prompt me to research mass customization more on the area and acquire broad knowledge for future purposes. Mass customization is the process through which wide-market goods and services modified to suit special customer needs are delivered in the market. It is a production and marketing strategy which combines the personalization and flexibility of the custom-made products with the reduced unit costs that are associated with mass production. This concept enables the customers to customise some features of a product or service while at the same time maintaining costs closer to that of the mass produced products.
Comparison
Mass customization is intended to meet the customers’ special needs and in the process benefit the organizations. Hu (2013) believes that mass customization has been enabled by various relevant technologies and concepts including delaying differentiation, product family architecture and reconfigurable manufacturing systems that delay product differentiation is implemented to manage the variety in manufacturing systems. And the author states that mass customization is capable of significantly improving profits and cut production costs for the organisation (Hu, 2013).
In the modern trade and business systems, the consumers demand highest quality possible, fast delivery and good product customization (Wilson, 2011). For it is clear that not all the products can be customised in accordance with the customers’ special needs and specifications; for example, consumer commodities such as flour, sugar and so on.
Liu, Shah& Schroeder (2012) believes mass customization has a positive relationship with customer satisfaction and that higher performance leads to higher customer satisfaction and suggests that mass customization can be...