Strategic Sourcing In Company B Under Mass Customization

Along with the globalization across the whole world, consumer's demand is changing very fast. They are not satisfied by the low cost products driven by mass production any longer, so they care about their own needs very much and pursue customized products which can meet their unique needs. Under this circumstance, the traditional Mass Production is facing significant challenges. In order to embrace this kind of change, satisfy consumer's needs as much as possible, companies are moving from Mass Production to Mass Customization. Companies are aiming at leveraging the mass production capability to realize customization. More and more examples show that traditional purchasing has become one of the key barriers to Mass Customization. Therefore, in order to support the move from Mass Production to Mass Customization, companies need to redefine Purchasing department's function and upgrade it from an executive department to a strategic department. By deploying Strategic Sourcing, companies can drive supplier's support to build an agile supply chain with high flexibility and quick response to market, so that companies can realize Mass Customization smoothly.This thesis describes how Strategic Sourcing is implemented in Company B under Mass Customization and studies the key success factors of realizing Mass Customization by Strategic Sourcing. Firstly, the thesis figures out the issues at Company B before Strategic Sourcing implementation which are continuously reduced material quality, unsatisfactory material supply service and too high purchasing total cost. Then the thesis describes how Strategic Sourcing is organized and implemented in Company B, where some effective tools and methodologies are introduced such as sourcing strategy development, supplier evaluation and selection system, supplier relationship management and best total cost. Finally, the thesis compares some key performance indicators to prove the effectiveness of Strategic Sourcing for Mass Customization and raises some suggestions on how Strategic Sourcing shall be implemented for Mass Customization.