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Fundamental modes of operation for mass customization
Bart MacCarthy*, Philip G. Brabazon, Johanna Bramham
Mass Customization Research Centre, School of Mechanical, Materials, Manufacturing Engineering & Management,
University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
Abstract
The concept of Mass Customization (MC)—producing customized goods for a mass market—has received
considerable attention in the research literature in recent years. However, the literature is limited in providing an
understanding of the content of MC strategies (the organizational structures, process technologies, etc., that are best in
a particular environment) and the process of MC strategies (the sub-strategy that an enterprise should select and how
they should go about implementing an MC strategy). In this paper six published classification schemes of relevance to
MC are reviewed. The classification schemes are applied to five case studies of enterprises operating in an MC
environment. The limitations of the schemes are analysed and their failure to distinguish key characteristics is
highlighted. Analysis of the findings leads to the development of a taxonomy of operational modes for MC. Five
fundamental modes of operation for MC are identified. These modes are described and justified and their application is
illustrated by contrasting the information requirements of two modes. The potential of these modes to provide the
foundations for detailed configuration models is discussed.
r 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Mass customization; Taxonomy

1. Introduction
The concept of Mass Customization (MC)—
producing customized goods for a mass market—
has received considerable attention in the researchliterature since its identification by Davis (1987)and the influential book by Pine (1993). MCresearch is now at the stage of investigating and
understanding how the concept can be operationalizedacross sectors. However, the scope of MC
and hence the range of operations that qualify asMC are unclear. There is agreement in the literature
that an important goal of MC is to obtaineconomies of scope that enable customized goodsto be as affordable as mass produced goods (Pine,1993; Hart, 1995; Alford et al., 2000; Tu et al.,2001), but beyond this agreement two viewpoints of
MC are emerging. One view is thatMC is a label tobe given to manufacturing enterprises exhibiting
particular structural characteristics, for example asobserved in companies that are offering consumerspersonal discretion over the attributes of productsthat have otherwise been mass marketed to them instandard off-the-shelf configurations. The otherview is that MC is a performance ideal—givingcustomers the opportunity to have a product ‘anytime they want it, anywhere they want it, any wayARTICLE IN PRESS
they want it’—in a similar way that ‘zero defects’ isan ideal in respect of quality (Hart, 1995). Thislatter view turns MC into a standard that isindependent of context and so is relevant to
customizing enterprises in general. A pragmaticinterpretation of MC that blends the two viewpoints
is that MC is different from pure customizationin that some compromise, limitations and
constraints are inevitable if mass characteristics—responsiveness, efficiency, high throughput with
high quality—are to be achieved and if premiumprices are to be avoided (MacCarthy et al., 2002).
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