As retailers and manufacturers recognize the need to be more customer-focused, several have begun tailoring their products to individual specifications. Mass customization is efficiently serving customers uniquely. The New Frontier in Business Competition. Mass customization is based on harnessing the power of information technology to narrowly target products and services to the needs of the individual buyer. Unlike pure custom work, mass-customized products are assembled to order from available components on highly agile production lines.
Customers choose their options and the product is assembled according to their specifications.
The trick is to offer enough options for the customer to feel that the product is custom-made, without substantially increasing costs. The pioneer in retail mass customization has been Levi Strauss, which introduced its Personal Pair jeans program in the fall of 1994. Measurements are taken by a sales associate, then fed into the computer, which determines a prototype trial pair. Once the fit is perfect, the order is sent via modem to a Levi's factory in Tennessee for production. Although the company won't say how many personal pairs have been sold, several clues suggest that it considers mass customization an effective strategy.