PageflexDuring the MIT Smart Customization Seminar 2010, managers from the following companies will present how they delight their customers with truly customized products. A special emphasis will be placed on how mass customization may be scaled up and how to create a sustainable business model.
Founded in 1997, today Build-A-Bear Workshop has become a synonymous with mass customization. With more than 400 stores world-wide, it the largest chain dedicated to the create-your-own trend in the United States.
Speaker: Dorrie Krueger, Managing Director
Best practices:
- How to scale up a mass customization business
- How to create a truly unique customization experience in a retail environment
Luxury brand Louis Vuitton is reinterpreting the individualization trend that has defined the luxury industry for many decades. Mixing modern interactive media and craftsmanship, LV creates new experiences for its customers through customization and personalization.
Speaker: Kamel Ouadi, Worldwide Digital Media Director
Best practices:
- How to utilize the latest personalization services on the internet
- How to combine company heritage with latest technologies
Lego Group is one of the most recognized toy companies in the world. In many ways, its core building system – based on the LEGO® brick- is a classic example of effective modularization. In recent years, the LEGO Group has added entirely new layers of customization to its offerings, including LEGO Design ByME, an internet-based mass customization experience.
Speaker: Hanne Træholt Odegaard, Director LEGO Digital & Head of Customization Business Development
Best practices:
- How to use customer communities to create a mass customization offering
- How an established company can harness the potential of mass customization and customer co-creation.
mymuesli has become one of the largest and most successful mass customization companies in Europe, building on the current trend of customizing food and nutrition. Learn how the company became an international leader in just a few years and what they will do next.
Speaker: Hubertus Bessau, Co-Founder and CEO
Best practices:
- How to scale-up a mass customization start-up to become an international category leader
- How to build customer interaction systems for repeat orders in mass customization
For many years, Archetype Solutions has enabled large US brands in the fashion industry to offer customized items. In 2008, Archetype went B-to-C by opening indiDenim and indiTailored, two of the leading consumer-direct services that offer truly custom-made jeans and dress shirts.
Speaker: Marybeth Luber. Chief Executive Officer
Best practices:
- How to build a platform to enable established brands to offer mass customization
- What are the latest trends in customer interaction for fashion related products
Named "start-up of the year" by Business Week Germany, chocri offers consumers the opportunity to design their own chocolate bars online, an inherently viral product due to its success as a gift item. It is also the first German mass customization startup to expand to the American market.
Speaker: Carmen Magar, CEO Chocri USA
Best practices:
- How to start a mass customization business with limited funds and how to manage a period of strong growth
- How to Master international expansion
Combining high-tech production technologies adapted from semiconductor manufacturing with design skills and a 2000-year old craft, Artaic makes the age-old art of mosaic accessible as a medium for practitioners in the building and construction industry.
Speaker: Ted Acworth, Founder and CEO
Best practices:
- How to set up a flexible manufacturing system for mass customization
- How to build a network of interaction partners along the value chain
Bivolino is one of the leading mass customization companies in the European apparel industry and also a leading partner in the EU Open Garment initiative. They have enabled large retailers like Marks&Spencer, Otto, WE, and others to offer customized items within established e-commerce sites.
Speaker: Michel Byvoet, CEO Bivolino Services
Best practices:
- How to enable established companies to enter mass customization
- How to make customer co-design as simple as possible
Located in London, Munich, and New York, Selve has reinvented the old craft of tailor-made shoes with high-tech and an industrial production system. CEO Claudia Kieserling will share her experiences how to build a global MC operation. Ms. Kieserling also will share her process of setting up MC operations in China and her experiences with different customer and retail concepts for MC.
Speaker: Claudia Kieslering, CEO Selve
Best practices:
- Establishing a dedicated MC supplier base in China
- How to make customer co-design as simple as possible
In addition to the company speakers, members & affiliates of the MIT Smart Customization Group will share results from latest research on mass customization, personalization, and co-creation. Presentations will include the following topics:
