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Process flexibility + the Internet = Mass customization online

The Internet has made virtually every corner of the world accessible to customers, and in so doing has driven down prices and profits for most products. This hypercompetitive environment has forced businesses to look at new ways to distinguish themselves from their competitors.

To achieve a distinctive market presence, many companies are providing mass-customized products through the Internet. These customized products cannot be stocked in the traditional brick-and-mortar retail stores. To serve the mass-customization market, firms need flexible manufacturing processes that can acoommodate a wide variety of product configurations. For example, Masterfoods, USA, a division of Mars, Inc., can now offer customers a choice of 21 colors of M&Ms in any combination of colors in eight ounce and five pound bags (previously, the minimum order size was 40 pounds). These custom-colored M&Ms, which can also have custom printing on them (It’s a Boy!, It’s a Girl!, Happy Birthday Harry!), are sold online at a cost of almost three times the price of regular M&Ms.

Yankee Candle allows its online customers to custom configure votive candles, choosing among 24 labels, 43 scents, six tulle wrappings, 13 ribbon colors and patterns, and seven silk flower accents – all with customized messages. You can order customized pants from Lands’ End, choosing the fabric, the color, the rise, the front style, the pocket flap style, and a cuff or hern. Lands’ End also offers customized shirts, with choices of fabric and color as well as collar and cuff style, yoke style, and fit according to your measurements and body type descriptions. Reflect.com offers customized cosmetics, including lipsticks and mousturizers. Customers enter information about skin color type as well as makeup style preferences, and the ineractive site provides guidance about product choices and adds custom ingredients as desired. After you’ve...