The past, present and future of mass customization-its relevance and implementation in Malaysia

Abstract

Mass customization (MC) is the capability to offer individually tailored products on a large scale with electronic commerce as its ideal facilitator. This conceptual paper, through the widespread analysis of MC related articles, identified the definition of MC as well as research in MC areas and eventually divided them into a few categories. From the analysis of MC definitions, two new definitions of MC are derived. Also, from the analysis of research areas in MC, MC related Decision Support System (DSS) is proposed to bridge the gap between these research areas. Additionally, problems with regards to the implementation MC in Malaysia are also identified and measures are proposed to overcome them.