Risk Management of Mass Customization in Supply Chain Management
Risk management of Mass customization in Supply Chain Management
Ching-Hua Huang, Cai Wei, Lam Shan Kong, Ching-Hsin Lee, Po-Chun Chen,
Faculty of Business, Economics & Law, University of Queensland, Australia
Key words: Risk management, Supply chain, Mass customization
Abstract
Companies nowadays have faced critical issues on managing the supply chain system and how to make it work smoothly is the main goal that is willing to pursue. This article is going to identify the risks in supply chain management and take mass customization as the key element to elaborate, and two examples are brought out to emphasize the importance of it. At last, negative impacts addressing the management and some recommendation of avoidance are given for future research and company implication.
Introduction
In the production oriented era of 1970s, the mass production strategy had commonly adopted in the industries that the process option was make-to-stock; the materials were released in a push system. On striving to be more competitive in the global markets, companies have been struggling from another radical change in the recent decade which has created a more decentralized organization system to keep up with the competition. The business focus has changed into customer oriented which prefers an adaptive manufacturing strategy like mass customization, which has adopted a hybrid of make to order or build to order approach and the material flows are somehow in a rather pull based (Coyle, et at. 2009 p. 600).
Dell, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Proctor and Gamble are the successful examples of overcoming this transition and successfully have introduced or incorporated mass customized strategy into their business models (Selladuraim 2004). Since the transition from mass production to mass customization has hidden some potential risks to the supply chain, unsurprisingly, there are still a lot who are still struggling for the
Ching-Hua Huang, Cai Wei, Lam Shan Kong, Ching-Hsin Lee, Po-Chun Chen,
Faculty of Business, Economics & Law, University of Queensland, Australia
Key words: Risk management, Supply chain, Mass customization
Abstract
Companies nowadays have faced critical issues on managing the supply chain system and how to make it work smoothly is the main goal that is willing to pursue. This article is going to identify the risks in supply chain management and take mass customization as the key element to elaborate, and two examples are brought out to emphasize the importance of it. At last, negative impacts addressing the management and some recommendation of avoidance are given for future research and company implication.
Introduction
In the production oriented era of 1970s, the mass production strategy had commonly adopted in the industries that the process option was make-to-stock; the materials were released in a push system. On striving to be more competitive in the global markets, companies have been struggling from another radical change in the recent decade which has created a more decentralized organization system to keep up with the competition. The business focus has changed into customer oriented which prefers an adaptive manufacturing strategy like mass customization, which has adopted a hybrid of make to order or build to order approach and the material flows are somehow in a rather pull based (Coyle, et at. 2009 p. 600).
Dell, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Proctor and Gamble are the successful examples of overcoming this transition and successfully have introduced or incorporated mass customized strategy into their business models (Selladuraim 2004). Since the transition from mass production to mass customization has hidden some potential risks to the supply chain, unsurprisingly, there are still a lot who are still struggling for the
References: Blecker T & Abdelkafi N2006,’ Variety Management in Assemble-to-Order Supply Chain’, MPRA Paper, no. 5250, pp. 39-56. Manuj, I & Mentzer, J T. 2008,’ Global supply chain risk management strategies’, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 38, no. 3, pp.192-223.