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Manufacturing and Marketing of One

The subject of customizing products and services to individuals has existed for centuries. If you're fortunate enough to live in Tibet, you can call the local tailor who will come to your home, observe you for a few weeks in your daily routine, then design a wardrobe that compliments your personality and your lifestyle.

Over the past few decades, the trend of Mass Customization has been gaining steam. Today via the net, a variety of products from PCs, to jeans, to automobiles can be custom built and ordered by individuals. Mass Customization provides added value to consumers by allowing them to match features, functions, and form factors to their personal preferences. During our technological age, mass customization first surfaced as a vital competitive issue in the communications industry. Now the trend has spread to the Web and other digital media.

John Pine, in his book Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition (1993) clearly illustrated this evolution. He describes how to develop effective strategies, how to transform organizations, and how to apply new techniques of management. He also discusses old and new product development models and ways to exploit technology. The goal being unique products that are manufactured according to the specific wants and needs of an individual. Mr. Pine believes that "Mass customization will definitely supplant mass production as the fundamental model for manufacturing in the next century. Im seeing more and more companies moving toward mass customization," Pine observes. "They are the leading edge of a very big wave. That means there is still tremendous opportunity for manufacturers to determine if mass customization holds strategic advantage for them." Some case studies that he discusses include the 29 million possible variations and zero set-up time of the production of Motorola pagers, the system of 'perpetual innovation' of Swatch, and the measurements taken of each rider of a Panasonic bicycle.

Rule-based configuration engines that sort huge databases first provided consumers the interactive experience of 'self-customization'. Shortly after the development of these tools, manufactures realized the potential volumes of user preferences and feedback that could be gleaned. This feedback could then be used to control design, production lot sizes, inventory, and regional distribution.

On the Web, portals have been the most recent, widespread incarnation of these controls. Unfortunately, there seems to be a direct correlation between being the first to use the 'hottest' functionality and a lack of creative implementation. As has often been the case with the Web, the big players rush to develop and launch sites that possess the latest and greatest technology, often lacking sensitivity to user needs or any unique traits necessary to form a long-term relationship. What we see is a time-to-market driven model of writing code, establishing a technologically-based (not use-based) standard, launching the newest 'startup' that markets the tool, and proliferating it to the giants. This month, the portal menu consists of E-mail, Search, Personalization (topic choices, colors, etc.), Instant messaging, News, Finance, Health, Real Estate, Games, and Weather. The giants saturate the marketplace, and after a few months (and a few billion dollars), only a few emerge as those that continue to learn, evolve, and ultimately survive.

Where does this all lead? One can imagine a world filled with 'home manufacturers', each with a rapid prototyping/manufacturing device making parts and gizmos that satisfied their needs. Now, add to it the conduit that drives these pieces of machinery, a computer attached to the Web. Market the gizmo, launch 'the gizmo's' home page, and let the whole world put it to use.