This year’s MIT Smart Customization Seminar took place at the MIT Media Lab in Boston, MA. The event on Mass Customization, Personalization, and Customer Co-Creation was focussed on identifying success factors for smart implementation of mass customization and personalization.
During the opening session, my colleague Dominik Walcher and I presented the first results of a joint research project: The Customization500, a global benchmarking study of mass customizers that has evaluated more than 500 mass customization offerings that can be purchased online (and in addition about 200 online configurators of companies where you can configure a product or service online, but then not order it online, e.g. automotive companies). This is, to our knowledge, the largest study evaluating the state of the art of mass customization on the internet. For each configuration site, we got more than 200 data points and evaluations.
The 2010 seminar’s foremost objective was to connect managers through peer-to-peer interaction fostering an intense discussion, facilitated by presentations from industry leaders and the Smart Customization Group faculty. The Seminar also provided excellent networking opportunities for anyone interested in mass customization, personalization, and customer co-creation.
For the members of the TIM research group the seminar offered great opportunities to get in touch with scholars and practitioners from the field of mass customization. Subsequently, we were all able to receive valuable input for our research and teaching efforts.
Frank Piller (RWTH/MIT)
redes de innovación @ ik4-ikerlan 