Mass Customisation is the customisation and personalisation of products and services for individual customers at a mass production price. The concept was first conceived by Stan Davis in Future Perfect.” (1)
Customised Products
There are many merits behind having customised consumer products, from having hearing aids that fit perfectly into the patients ears to dental crowns for post-root canal treatments. Of course caffeine addicts would find themselves in a living nightmare if suddenly coffee breweries like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts the world over decided to go the way of mass production and sell just one type of coffee across the board.
It is said that the advent of better information and communication technologies like the internet is what makes mass customisation ultimately achievable, in that customers can communicate more efficiently to the producers on what type of customisations that they want. Firms like Jujups, Shapeways ar e good examples of ICT use in mass customisation.
Limitation to the Customisation
However, while communication is important, there remains another enabling/disabling facet to mass customisation, that is the design-manufacturing-cost capabilities. This in fact, explains why majority of products out there on the market remain mainly manifestations of mass production rather than mass customisation. Well, just take the computer monitor that you are reading this article on – mass customisation? I think not.
But then an emerging new industry in the form of rapid manufacture/additive manufacture seems to be the potential solution to the limitations manufacturing capability.
Rapid Manufaturing : Rising Star Hopeful
Rapid Manufacture and Injection molding Cost Comparison
Shown above is an exaggerated version of how a cost comparison between using rapid manufacturing methods and traditional injection molding to produce a similar plastic part would look like. The spirit of my belief is that by eliminating the need for molds and mold design, rapid manufacturing methods becomes competitive for low volume manufacure below a theoritical amount Q1 depending on the parts and processes involved.
Of course, as rapid manufacturing technology improves, no doubt one day it will definitely come close to being able to compete breast to breast with traditional manufacturing methods. But even now, there already a well established market for prototyping applications and other low volume manufacture such as customised earpieces used in hearing aids designed and manufactured to fit perfectly into each unique patient’s ears.
Under-utilisation of Potential
But thus far all these ‘customisation’ work are still mainly handled by engineering professionals; Laymen are largely kept out of the loop. It is not surprising as it is not as easy as it seems to move from 2D customisations like customised T-shirts and printed mugs to a 3D playing field. A wide plethora of design considerations begin to come into play – issues like part strength, buckling loads, weight and etc adds a whole new dimension to the customisation process. Even if the parts manufactured this way are meant solely for decorative purposes, they still have to be able to hold their shape under their own weight. Imagine designing a model airplane only to discover after making it that the wings were too thin that they begin to sag under their own weight – not very nice is it?
In other words, it would seem that just having a good communication network between consumers and manufacturers is not enough, what we need is some way to incorporate all the design for manufacturing considerations into the customisations that the consumers want, without having to make them go sit through engineering courses – that’s where the bulk of the consumers are anyway – the laymen.
From here onwards..
And that’s where my research will take me over the course of the coming academic year. I look forward to be able to share some of my thoughts along the way here – hope it’s as fun as it seems 
