The general attitude towards Mass Customization (MC) is positive. It is a key to a betterudaccess and satisfaction of the clients needs. The formal research tells us that customization is onlyudone among many options available to firms seeking a competitive advantage [1]. Nor doudcompanies that offer mass customization services have to forsake offering standardized productsudand services; they can integrate both [2].udAll the functions of a company should be involved in the customization processes, whichudassociating to three main active roles: marketing, production, and design. The research onudcustomization has been developed mostly follows the perspectives of marketing and productionudorganization. Therefore, we will look into some relevant issues from the design perspective. Theudstreamline of the design research on customization is mainly focused on interaction, where someudsuccessful experiences in vehicle and PC sectors are described, and where customization plays anudimportant role in building customer experience.udA basic study of the literature shows that MC is often described in contradiction with MassudProduction (MP), generating an inter-functional contrast which can be solved in 3 main ways byudusing a different organization of production, by using different machinery and by using differentuddesign principles in order to control the product architecture. Given this hypothesis, the researchudinformed by this paper focuses on the investigations of some “natural” contradictions, such asudwhich between market and design, and between production and design, in order to describeudapproaches and design tools which have been generated to facilitate the solution of theseudcontradictions in different industrial sectors.udThe research has been done by some case studies in furniture industry, within some European andudAsian companies that indicates the interest on MC is expanding in both areas, and particularly theudItalian ones have developed an advanced model which is likely shifting to the emerging economies.
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