“We shape our dwellings and afterwards our dwellings shape us”
Mr. Winston S. Churchill in the House of Commons, 1944 In this century we desire choice, expression, individuality and the ability to change our minds at the last minute. The term “mass customisation” started to gain popularity in the early-nineties; it was coined by Stan Davis in his book Future Perfect but the term was popularized by Joseph Pine in his book Mass Customisation: The New Frontier in Business Competition in 1993 (Schodek, Bechthold, Griggs, Kao, & Steinberg, 2004)
Virtually all executives today recognize the need to provide outstanding service to customers.
Focusing on the customer, however, is both an imperative and a potential challenge. In their desire to become customer driven, many companies have resorted to inventing new programs and
Figure 2-7: The Scheepstimmermanstraat project in Amsterdam is an example of user participation in housing.
Source: Wikipedia.
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procedures to meet every customer’s request. But as customers and their needs grow increasingly diverse, such an approach has become a sure way to add unnecessary cost and complexity to operations (Gilmore & B. Joseph Pine II, 1997).
Companies throughout the world have embraced mass customisation in an attempt to avoid those pitfalls and provide unique value to their customers in an efficient manner. Readily available information technology and flexible work processes permit them to customise goods or services for individual customers in high volumes and at a relatively low cost. But many managers at these companies have discovered that mass customisation, too, can produce unnecessary cost and complexity. They are realizing that they did not examine thoroughly enough what kind of customisation their customers would value before they plunged ahead with this new strategy.
That is understandable. Until now, no framework has existed to help managers determine the type of customisation they should pursue.
In car industry for example and for years, insignificant choices like power windows and upholstery colour have been possible, but the major aspects of the car have been fixed (Lawrence, 2003). Consumers are only able to choose which of a few models is closest to what they desire, without the opportunity for a real personalised solution. General Motors (GM) has suggested a new model for car production that may change all that. The Hy-wire or AUTOnomy fuel cell concept relies on a generic mass-produced chassis, but allows the body of the car to be customised.
The easily replaceable body could be exchanged for different occasions or as new styles became popular (Lawrence, 2003). A concept that recalls to the mind the idea of chassis and infill discussed earlier.
In an article called “The four faces of customisation” published by Harvard business review in 1997, four distinct approaches to customisation were identified, which they called collaborative, adaptive, cosmetic, and transparent. When designing or redesigning a product, process, or business unit, managers should examine each of the approaches for possible insights into how best to serve their customers. In some cases, a single approach will dominate the design. More often, however, managers will discover that they need a mix of some or all of the four approaches to serve their own particular set of customers.
Collaborative customizers conduct a dialogue with individual customers to help them articulate their needs, to identify the precise offering that fulfils those needs, and to make customised products for them. The approach most often associated with the term mass customisation, collaborative customisation is appropriate for businesses whose customers cannot easily articulate what they want and grow frustrated when forced to select from a plethora of options.
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Adaptive customizers offer one standard, but customisable, product that is designed so that users can alter it themselves. The adaptive approach is appropriate for businesses whose customers want the product to perform in different ways on different occasions, and available technology makes it possible for them to customize the product easily on their own. (A programmed lighting unit is an example in which the customer is able to experiment different lighting moods and combinations and save them into pre-sets)
Cosmetic customizers present a standard product differently to different customers. The cosmetic approach is appropriate when customers use a product the same way and differ only in how they want it presented. Rather than being customised or customisable, the standard offering is packaged specially for each customer. For example, the product is displayed differently, its attributes and benefits are advertised in different ways, the customer’s name is placed on each item, or promotional programs are designed and communicated differently. Although personalising a product in this way is, frankly, cosmetic, it is still of real value to many customers.
(Billions of dollars spent each year on such products as embellished T-shirts and sweatshirts.) Transparent customizers provide individual customers with unique goods or services without letting them know explicitly that those products and services have been customised for them. The transparent approach to customisation is appropriate when customers’ specific needs are predictable or can easily be deduced, and especially when customers do not want to state their needs repeatedly. Transparent customizers observe customers’ behaviour without direct interaction and then inconspicuously customize their offerings within a standard package.
This new practice is already being provided by companies working in the industrial production.
Examples like Nike shoes, Swatch and Automobile manufacturers. They provide real time choice for lower price and higher quality. Through supply chain management achieved by electronic software they can tailor to your need the exact product of your choice (Kieran & Timberlake, 2004).
Gropius outlines the extent of the standardisation required in housing from his point of view:
“Before this is practicable, however, every part of the house-floor-beams, wall, slabs, windows, doors, staircases and fittings – will have to be normed. The repetition of standardised parts, and the use of identical materials in different buildings, will have the same sort of coordinating and sobering effect on the aspect of our towns as uniformity of type in modern attire has in social life. But that will in no sense restrict the architect’s freedom of design. For although every house and block of flats will bear the
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unmistakable impress of our age, there will always remain, as in the clothes we wear, sufficient scope for the individual to find expression for his own personality”.
(Barnes & Feldman, 1982)