Mass Customization Strategies And Exploration Of Their Applications In Automobile Industry

Mass customization is a production mode under the guidance of system theory and ledby customer demands especially their special preferences, it aims to achieve massproduction’s cost level and high efficiency, by means of advanced manufacturing,information and management technologies, so that it can realize individually customizedproducts and/or services. It features differentiation, fast response and low cost, meaning tocreate a lean-agile supply chain where members compete and yet collaborate with oneanother to meet customer needs together. The main idea is to turn customized productstotally or at least in part into problems of mass production through ways of productreorganization and process reengineering, while involving less custom components andsteps to the greatest extent. Thus, mass customization sets those firms free fromconventional mass production, and adopts concepts of product family, modular design andpostponement strategy for customization position, it must select the best customizationarchitecture according to product features and customer requirements.This paper analyzes and summarizes the status and tendency of mass customization inautomobile industry by applying relevant theories and implementation strategies, as well aspoints out the strengths, weaknesses and challenges of this production mode. In particular,it discusses modular design and automobile supply chain in depth. Furthermore, a case ofVW Phaeton customization is given to prove the mode feasibility and anatomize someprinciples and methods of mass customization, adding a good theoretical and realisticreference to domestic automobile companies when they try to explore this productionmode.Whereas, this research brings about several findings in terms of automobileexperiments, such as limit of clients’ customizing participation, information asymmetry between automobile OEMs and consumers, inventory transmission effect along automobileMC supply chain.