A Configurational Approach to
Mass Customization and Its Implications for
Work Design
Gensheng (Jason) Liu
Ph.D. Candidate
Operations and Management Science Department
Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota
August 6, 2005
OM Division PhD Consortium
Annual Meeting of AoM, Hawaii
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Dissertation
 Title
 On Mass Customization: Configurational and Contingency perspectives
 Dissertation Committee
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Roger Schroeder (Advisor, OMS)
Rachna Shah (Advisor, OMS )
Susan Meyer Goldstein (OMS)
Christopher Bingham (Statistics)
 Stage: Will defend proposal in two months
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Dissertation
 Research questions
 Are there different patterns in manufacturers’ achievement on mass
customization capabilities?
 Does work design has any impact on manufacturers’ achievement on mass
customization capabilities?
 When is mass customization the most appropriate strategy for a manufacturer?
 What are the cultural and structural factors that facilitate the achievement of a
manufacturer’s mass customization capabilities?
 Primary research methodology: Cross-sectional survey
 Unit of observation: Plant
 Practical contribution: Better understanding of implementation
conditions and facilitating factors of mass customization.
 Academic contribution: Empirically investigate conceptually stated
principles about mass customization.
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Dissertation Research Essay 1
A Configurational Approach to
Mass Customization and Its
Implications for Work Design
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Outline
 Research Motivation
 Propositions and Hypotheses
 Methods
 Results
 Discussion
 Summary and Conclusion
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Research Motivation
Mass Customization: A New Production Paradigm
 Key drivers
 Increasing customer demand for product variety and customization
 Shortening life cycle of products
 Technology development
 Definition
 The ability of a firm to quickly produce customized products on a large scale at a
cost comparable to non-customized products (Tu et al. 2001).
 Research
 Da Silveira et al. (2001): “Literature on mass customization implementation is still
incipient. Most claims are drawn from limited case examples or based on
educated guesses from authors rather than from hard evidence obtained through
exhaustive research.”
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Research Motivation
Achievement of Mass Customization Capabilities
 Mass customization strategy is only appropriate for certain market
situations (Hart 1995, Salvador et al. 2002)
 Not all companies that pursue mass customization strategy actually
succeed (Pine et al. 1993, Zipkin 2001)
 Human resource management has an impact on mass
customization (Lau 1995, Kakati 2002)
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Research Motivation
Research Questions
 Are there different patterns in manufacturers’ achievement on mass
customization capabilities?
 Does work design has any impact on manufacturers’ achievement
on mass customization capabilities?
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Propositions & Hypotheses
 Proposition 1: Manufacturers can be classified into distinct groups
based on their achievement on various mass customization
capabilities.
 A configurational approach toward mass customization (taxonomy)
 An extant typology of mass customizers (Duray et al. 2000)
 Degree of customer involvement in product design
 Degree of product modularity
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Propositions & Hypotheses
 Sociotechnical systems perspective on work design
 Fit between social subsystem and technical subsystem within an
organization
 Nine principles (Cherns 1978 & 1987)
 Applications in OM
 Cellular manufacturing (Huber & Brown 1991)
 Lean production (Niepce & Molleman 1998)
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Propositions & Hypotheses
 Hypotheses 1a-j: In work design, compared to other manufacturers,
mass customizers use more of the following factors.
STS Principles
Measures
Hypothesis
Compatibility;
Minimal critical specifications
Employee empowerment
1a
Variance control;
Information flow
Feedback to shopfloor employees
1b
Autonomous maintenance
1c
Multifunctionality;
Boundary location
Multifunctional employees
1d
Management breadth of experience
1e
Cellular manufacturing setup
1f
Shopfloor assistance to employees
1g
Task-related training for employees
1h
Human values
Human goodness
1i
Incompletion
Continuous improvement and learning
1j
Support congruence
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Methods
 Sample and data collection
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“High Performance Manufacturing” project
6 countries: U.S., Germany, Finland, Sweden, Japan, and Korea
3 industries: machinery, electronic, and automotive
189 plants
 Measurement
 7-point Likert scales
 Mass customization capabilities scale based on Tu et al. (2001)
 Data analysis
 Cluster analysis for proposition 1
 ANOVA for hypotheses 1a-j
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Methods
Mass customization capabilities scale
 MC1: We are highly capable of large scale product customization.
 MC2: We can easily add significant product variety without increasing cost.
 MC3: Our setup costs, changing from one product to another, are very low.
 MC4: We can customize products while maintaining high volume.
 MC5: We can add product variety without sacrificing quality.
 MC6: Our capability for responding quickly to customization requirements is very
high.
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Results
I: Empirical Taxonomy
Derivation of the cluster solution
 Outlier detection – 172 plants retained
 Two-stage cluster analysis
 Hierarchical cluster analysis – 3 cluster solution most viable
 K-means cluster analysis
 Final cluster centroids
Variable
MC1
MC2
MC3
MC4
MC5
MC6
n
Group 1
4.849
3.818
3.989
4.302
4.791
4.851
74
Group 2
5.898
4.263
3.789
5.471
5.404
5.822
57
Group 3
5.768
5.297
5.435
5.841
5.898
5.862
41
Group 1: non-customizers; Group 2: inefficient customizers; Group 3: mass customizers
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Results
I: Empirical Taxonomy
Validation of the cluster solution
 Replication
 A second nonhierarchical analysis: 95.3% overlap
 Split sample replication: 91.0% and 76.2% overlap
 ANOVA on cluster variate
 Only 3 out of 18 comparisons not significant, but all as expected
 Discriminant analysis
 Both discriminant functions significant.
 Cross-validation: Jack-knifing procedure results misclassification rate of
4.1%.
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Results
I: Empirical Taxonomy
Validation of the cluster solution
 Predictive validity
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Manufacturing flexibility: mix flexibility and volume flexibility
Product modularity (Duray et al. 2000)
Time-based manufacturing practices (Tu et al. 2001)
All variables are significantly different between the three groups as
predicted by theories or extant research
 Contextual factors of mass customization
 Country effect: Germany has more inefficient customizers and Japan
has more non-customizers.
 No industry, plant size, or plant age effect
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Results
I: Empirical Taxonomy
Proposition 1
 Proposition 1 supported: Manufacturers have different patterns in
terms of their achievement on various mass customization
capabilities
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Results
II: Work Design For Mass Customization
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Non-Customizers
Inefficient Customizers
Mass Customizers
F-value
n = 74
n = 57
n = 41
(sig.)
EMPOWER
-0.253 (2)
0.184 (1)
0.182
4.05 (.019)
FEEDBACK
-0.167 (3)
-0.203 (3)
0.359 (1,2)
4.76 (.010)
AUTOMAIN
-0.388 (2,3)
0.084 (1)
0.421 (1)
9.90 (.000)
MULTIEMP
-0.375 (3)
-0.009
0.411 (1)
9.67 (.000)
MGTEXP
-0.097 (3)
-0.266 (3)
0.405 (1,2)
6.17 (.003)
CELLULAR
-0.287 (3)
-0.163 (3)
0.538 (1,2)
10.50 (.000)
EMPASSIS
-0.306 (3)
0.008 (3)
0.491 (1,2)
9.30 (.000)
TRAINING
-0.358 (3)
-0.001
0.404 (1)
8.66 (.000)
GOODNESS
-0.368 (2,3)
0.065 (1)
0.486 (1)
11.14 (.000)
CIMPROVE
-0.291 (3)
-0.037
0.286 (1)
4.58 (.012)
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Results
II: Work Design For Mass Customization
Hypotheses 1a-j
 Hypothesis 1a marginally supported: Mass customizers empower
employees marginally more than non-customizers.
 Hypotheses 1b-j all supported: All these work design factors have
significant effect on the achievement of mass customization
capabilities.
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Discussion
 Work design has important impact on mass customization. From
the sociotechnical systems perspective, to successfully implement
mass customization strategy, the social system should fit the
technical system.
 Human resource bundles (MacDuffie 1995, Ichniowski et al. 1996)
 All work design factors contribute to customization ability.
 Among the work design factors, assistance to employees, feedback
to employees, management breadth of experience, and cellular
manufacturing setup also contribute to customization efficiency.
 Inefficient customizers have even less management breadth of
experience and feedback to employees than non-customizers.
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Contribution & Limitation
 Contribution
 The first empirically based taxonomy of mass customization.
 Apply sociotechnical systems theory in mass customization
research.
 Empirically investigate the relationship between work design and
the achievement of mass customization capabilities, especially
identify the work design factors that contribute to efficiency of
customization.
 Limitation
 Work design factors not complete from the sociotechnical
systems perspective (i.e., human values)
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Related research
 A contingency approach toward mass customization: When is mass
customization the most appropriate strategy for a manufacturer?
 Cultural and structural factors that facilitate mass customization
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Questions and Comments ?
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