The University of Texas at Austin Facing extensive domestic and foreign competition, companies are looking for a long term business strategy to maintain persistent profitability. For instance, companies retaining stock of every variety in order to satisfy customer orders may find inventory cost out of control.
Turnaround time can be too lengthy to lose sales and cause customer dissatisfaction.
Providing too many unimportant options only confuses customers and does not result in serious sales boost. Mass customization is not a new idea. Orders can be immediately routed to remote factories and being processed by EDI systems. A manufacturer can look for supplies, compare prices, place orders, pay bills, and schedule deliveries. Groupware and other applications can flexibly coordinate and schedule team tasks.