Production customization, or more accurately, product mass customization is a capability that was waiting for the tools to be put into place in order to delivery on the promise. Now in the retail omni market these tools are gaining critical mass to support the opportunity to expand into this area and be very successful. This is also a capability that would take off with the consumer market although it would need to start with the types of products that best fit the mass customization model to succeed at first. Another capability that really goes hand in hand with the mass customization capability is just in time manufacturing. Both of these capabilities bring important benefits in inventory forecasting, management and overstock reductions to the retailer and these can off set any change in the manufacturing and delivery process incurred through the mass customization.
Both just in time manufacturing and mass customization products start with a base par-complete product and when the consumer completes an order the product can be finished and then shipped to either the retail outlet or directly to the customer. A very straightforward example of the process can be found in apparel and trousers where the length of the inseam can be customized for each customer. The retailer would stock trousers by waist size and unfinished length hems and when the consumer places the order the specific length of the inseam would be requested by the consumer and the hemming would be completed after the order has been placed for delivery to the customer. This delivers a great deal of benefits to both the consumer and the retailers for instance the retailer can forecast by waist size and simplify the forecast and reduce overstock, while the consumer can select specific lengths and even different length by leg to produce a trouser that is customized to their fit eliminating the need for a tailor.
This functionality requires increased collaboration and coordination with manufacturing and the supply chain partners to coordinate the final steps of the manufacturing along with the delivery to the consumer. This will also be improved through the use of increased data modeling and analytics to understand both the consumer demand actuals and potential along with the analytics to tune and improve the customization and the delivery of the products. This will greatly benefit from the improved collaboration tools and especially from the improved data collection and analytics when combined with improved collaboration across all partners supporting the consumer shopping and purchasing market. The tools developed to date and the potential of improved tools and collaboration made possible by the retail omni market combine to put these new capabilities in reach form both a functional perspective and and execution perspective.
The questions now are how and when will mass customization be expanded in the retail omni and who will be the first to deliver these capabilities to the mass market for an expansion of products. Mass customization is available for many products already that are mostly related to personalization. The opportunity waiting is for the first retailer to make this capability available for more products. The only thing holding this capability from mass distribution is imagination to identify products that can benefit. My bet is on Amazon as the next big game changer to the retail market.
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