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Essay On Mass Customization

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Chapter 7: Mass customization of products has become a common approach in manufacturing organizations. Explain the ways in which mass customization can be applied to service firms as well. While mass customization is a viable option in manufacturing with digital factories and employing lean manufacturing designs, service firms have to employ a more productive environment to make mass customization profitable. Mass customization refers to using mass production technologies to quickly and cost-effectively assemble goods that are uniquely designed to fit the demands of individual customers (Daft, 2016, p. 271). The key challenge for service mass customization is to translate information about consumer preferences gained through market research into a format that can be easily used for service modularization decisions and customer-contact personnel training (Haas & Kunz, n.d., p. 603). In the service arena, mass customization becomes an ongoing configuration process with direct involvement of the customer coupled with professional advice by service personnel who understand the configuration rules and know them by heart. A clear understanding of the customer’s needs is required, as well as a requirement by service personnel to provide the customer clear and concise configuration options that strike the perfect balance between flexibility and complexity. Also, a continuous interaction between frontline contact personnel and the customer is a consequence that must be

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