Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition (Hardcover)

by B. Joseph Pine (Author) "THERE once was an economic power that dominated the world's industrial production..." (more)
Key Phrases: flexible specialization communities, increased market turbulence, market environment factors, New Competition, American System, Old Competition (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Brings to the fore the discussion on how companies will meet the future needs of their customers and, ultimately, survive in intensely competitive markets." -- Information Week --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description
New ways of managing, together with new technology, make possible the seeming paradox of providing each customer with the "tailor-made" benefits of the pre-industrial craft system at the low costs of modern mass production. Pine explains mass customization in its historical context and reveals when and how managers can make the transition to mass customization.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 333 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business School Press; 1 edition (November 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875843727
• ISBN-13: 978-0875843728
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #478,981 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars He gets it., November 8, 1998

By A Customer

What a refreshing book that is inendated with facts and research, yet the concepts have implementable steps to move your organization into the personalization future. Indeed this author "gets it" when it comes to the individualized services and products that every company should adopt.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic for Internet Entrepreneurs, August 13, 2005

By	Simit Patel "ActoNetwork.com" (New York City, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition (Paperback)

Fantastic! The fact that this book was written in 1993 is particularly astounding, as its ideas are still cutting edge today. Internet entrepreneurs need to read, re-read, and workshop this book, as it is particularly useful from both a practical and conceptual standpoint in helping companies realize how their business models need to change once they begin to participate in markets where supply is infinite -- an issue that strikes at the core of e-commerce.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars useful but a bit oudated, November 5, 2001

By	Janet Lau (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition (Paperback)

After reading the book, I found a clearer picture about mass customization. Mass customization is now widely used by many businesses, but we may not know how it operates!
In this book, it tells you how you should change your business operation to mass customization step by step, also tell you 5 methods to customize your products or services. And these 5 methods are useful and practicable for designing how the business enter the market.
The stucture of the book is clear, give a full description on the development of the operation, from mass production to mass customization , and the pros and cons of those two operations, followed with the detail explanation on mass customization.
However, I think it's a bit outdated because all the things around us are mass customized and we do not have to decide whether we should change to customized operation or not, but to decide the degree of the customization.