Study Of Mass Customization Decision Based On Different Competition Environment

The desire for product variety and unique feature of consumer has been rising. The mass production model once overwhelmingly popular in industrial times can hardly sustain the competitive advantage for companies. It is of necessity for company fighting for its market status to design and manufacture products fit for the customers’needs more quickly and precisely. Mass customization can hand the superiority offered by mass production and customization together. All the customers can get the customized product fit for their preference at a reasonable price. Therefore, the mass customization strategy has received great attention from both academician and practitioners.The extant literatures have done some significant work in the field of mass customization research, which provides direction for the operation of corporation and lays a sound foundation for future research. Taking firms’production behaviors and consumers’ behaviors as the research object, mass customization as the research topic, this paper constructs both mathematical models and theoretical models to analyze effect factors of firms’ production decisions and consumers’future repurchase intentions toward customized products based on different competition environment. The main content consists of four parts.Firstly, chapters 3, in the market demand characterized by increasing product variety, more and more consumers are purchasing products that closely match their individual preference. However, it has become an urgent issue for many firms to decide whether to implement mass production or mass customization. This paper studies a market with customers who have heterogeneous preferences for product attributes, customization level, lead time, and so on. We employ backward induction method to analyze firms’ production decisions under duopoly. Theoretical analysis and numerical examples show that customization level, lead time, consumer heterogeneity and time sensitivity have significant effect on competition between firms. The results contribute to provide theory and method for firms to make decisions on production mode selection under duopolistic market.Secondly, chapter 4, this paper considers the standardization and customization decisions of two types of firms with the assumption of consumer heterogeneity both in product attributes and firm preference. By introducing product variety and customization level, the evolutionary game model is presented to study evolution of production decision of firms. Theoretical analysis and numerical examples show that the evolutionary equilibrium outcome depends on the effect of firms’operational status as well as the degree of customer’s intensity about product variety and customization level. Meanwhile, an index signifying the relative attractiveness of standardization and customization strategies is developed, which provides theoretical base for production mode choice of the firms.Thirdly, chapter 5, taking consumer preference insight and customer perceived value as mediating variable, and taking consumer experience and customer response capacity as moderating variable, this paper discusses the relationship between different behavior and consumers’future repurchase intentions toward customized products. The results show that the degree of customer participation and enterprise reputation has significant positive effect on consumer’s future repurchase intentions toward custom products. The results also show that consumer preference insight and customer perceived value mediate the effect between different variables. Moreover, consumer experience positively moderates the relationship between the degree of customer participation and consumer’s futures repurchase intentions. Customer response capacity also positively moderates the relationship between enterprise reputation and consumer’s futures repurchase intentions.Next, chapter 6, through the case of the enterprise in the successful practice, this paper studies the mass customization involving rag trade industry, electronics industry, as well as manufactory industry in the Internet age, analyzes the production mode with mass customization behind three cases. Meanwhile, relevant policy recommendation is provided from four aspects:the improvement of customization rate, the advancement of customization level, the development of customized platform, and strengthen of competitive advantage.Finally, a brief summary and future research are given in Chapter 7. From corporation perspective and consumer perspective, this paper makes a comprehensive consideration of mass customization in different competitive environment by including customization level, time sensitivity, competitive advantage, consumer heterogeneity. It enriches our knowledge about mass customization in operations management, and points out some meaningful innovation incentive strategy for the firms in the Internet age.