Taxonomy for Classifying Products on the Customization Spectrum

A recent trend has been to compete in the marketplace by allowing customers to personalize products to best meet their needs and taste. Enhanced customization increases variability and complexity in the manufacturing systems and supply chains supporting the manufacture and delivery of these products. The range or amount of customization practical for a product depends on several factors, such as its architecture, materials, manufacturing processes, supplier capabilities, customer interaction with design architecture, etc. Products can be placed on a spectrum of customization, ranging from Mass-Production (minimal customization), to Mass-Customization (standard design with some degree of customization), to Mass-Individualization (customer involved in the design process to co-create the product). A key question for the organization is to determine which of these levels of customization is best suited for their product, given the customer requirements, the product architecture, and the necessary manufacturing capabilities.This paper reviews the extant literature on personalization and customization. We propose a taxonomy to identify salient characteristics of different customization paradigms. We use this taxonomy to identify what products belong to each customization paradigm. Additionally, we summarize different taxonomies considering their application context, pros, and cons of each. Finally, we apply our taxonomy to three example products, where we consider customer engagement point, product architecture, assembly configuration, and technology flexibility.