Why Generative Design Pushes Mass Customization to the Next Level – Part 1

Image by Patrick Chia

The oxymoron mass customization has been buzzing around for some years now. As far as I know the first big mass customization wave passed through back in the mid 90s. (Although the term was discussed before by e.g. futurist Alvin Toffler in the 70s . Toffler also coined the term “Prosumer” in the 80s by the way).

Mass customization was/is praised as the holy grail of customer satisfaction. But has the mass customization management system made it to become a widespread mainstream business model yet? Not really, maybe only within in a handful of branches (e.g. automotive sector).

But why not?

Let’s make a step back to Joseph Pine’s definition of mass customization in 1993:

In the mass customization management system, the goal is to develop, produce, market, and deliver affordable
goods and services with enough variety and customization that nearly everyone finds exactly what they want.

I think we should put some stress on the phrase “enough variety” to answer the question why mass customization isn’t so widespread yet. “Enough variety” does not necessarily refers to hundreds of product options to choose from.

“Enough variety” means that prosumers always feel good (receiving an additional benefit) when changing parameters or pushing triggers of a product configurator. Whatever they do, they should never feel overburdened while co-creating/co-designing a custom product.

In practice “enough variety” is often misunderstood: prosumers are often confronted with so many customization choices that they feel puzzled and uncertain about their custom creations. Offering an overwhelming variety of product options can even reduce the perceived benefit. This phenomena is known as the “Paradox of Choice”.

Barry Schwartz (author of the book with the same name) on the Paradox of Choice:

.watch Barry Schwartz key lecture on youtube

So how can we define “enough variety” then?

Frank Piller, Fabrizio Salvador and Martin de Holan from MIT Sloan School of Management argue in a recently published paper that the right amount of variety can be defined with what they call a “solution space“:

A mass customizer must first identify the idiosyncratic needs of its customers, specifically, the product attributes along which customer needs diverge the most. (This is in stark contrast to a mass producer, which must focus on identifying central tendencies so that it can target those needs with a limited number of standard products.) Once that information is known and understood, a business can define its “solution space,” clearly delineating what it will offer — and what it will not.

The lessons we should learn for today:

.
1. Find out what you will not offer.
2. Offer a level of customization-attributes that make sense.