Operations configurations for Mass Customization

More than a decade has passed since Stan Davis (1987) proposed the idea that “mass customisation” was one of the long-term trends that were shaping the competitive landscape. Now we can say that, although mass customisation approach is not a panacea for every kind of firm, it is really proving to be an important component of competitive strategy for more and more firms. The hurdles in implementing mass customisation, a further evidence of its competitive potential due to low imitability, however, are not trivial, especially when coming to operations strategy issues. How firm can allow for greater responsiveness of their operations while offering customised products? How the product should be designed for fast customisation? How the supply chain can support such a strategy ensuring service level while keeping inventories low? Managers are looking for answers to these questions as well as research is trying to formalise models that provide some insights in how operations strategies supporting mass customisation should be shaped. In this paper we address these issues through a qualitative research design based on the analysis of six cases in the telecommunications, transportation vehicles and food processing equipment industries. Our findings are based on the observation that different companies pursue mass customisation approaches with different intensities and that, based on this “intensity” different operations configurations are set out.