Customized goods and services occur when their respective supply and demand chains are managed in a simultaneous and real-time manner. From a research perspective, we classify the methods that are employed in the management of these chains, based on whether supply and/or demand are flexible or...

Mobile Commerce is a new degree of electronic commerce arises from the convergence of Internet and mobile communication technologies. In order to be successful in mobile business, it is not sufficient to simply transfer conventional Internet applications or E-Commerce business models on mobile...

Large product variety in mass customization involves a high internal complexity level inside a company’s operations, as well as a high external complexity level from a customer’s perspective. To cope with both complexity problems, an information system based on agent technology is able to be...

The UK house-building industry has often been criticized for failing to meet the housing needs of the country. The traditional craft-based build process is labour intensive with a long lead-time and is difficult to control for product quality. It is also not suitable for configurable designs...

The UK housing industry has been slow to adopt new working practices which have brought improvements in product quality and customer focused operations to many sectors of manufacturing industry. Instead, the dominant business driver has been land and house price inflation, with the market...

Der Finanzdienstleistungssektor befindet sich aktuell in einem nachhaltigen Struktur-wandel. Um im Spannungsfeld zwischen Kunden- und Effizienzorientierung die Befrie-digung individueller Kundenbedürfnisse mit der Realisierung von Economies of Scale verbinden zu können, wird in der Literatur...

In this study, we examine firms' incentive to offer customized products in addition to their standard products in a competitive environment. We offer several key insights. First, we delineate market conditions in which firms will (will not) offer customized products in addition to their standard...

A customized product is a special product designed and manufactured for individual customers to meet their individual needs. Managers need to understand why customers demand and how companies supply customized products. The importance of this study is to highlight business, marketing and...

Form postponement postulates that changes in product form occur at the latest possible point along a production and distribution process. The potential benefits of form postponement have been widely investigated in the literature on the subject. However, conflicting or hard-to-relate findings...

Many authors have written about Mass Customization and its features and categories. Literature on the implementation of Mass Customization, and in particular the supporting information technology, is scant. This paper attempts to fill this gap by focusing on this subject. We determine the key...