Part VI: Applying Mass Customization to the Fashion Industry
Building
a customer centric value chain for apparel and footwear customization
The apparel and the footwear industry are both industries that are forerunners
in the application of mass customization. The reason behind this development
can be seen in the fact that clothes and footwear offer the potential
to address all three possible dimensions of customization: fit (shape,
measurements, size), functionality and aesthetic design (taste, forms).
Products that require the matching of different physical dimensions or
functional requirements often engender a higher price premium than products
that are customized just by the possibility of changing colors or design
patterns. Clothes and footwear are products that must, first of all, exactly
fit their user's measurements. Additionally, customer integration into
the aesthetic design of a shoe or a piece of clothes and the adaptation
of functional requirements (like the profile of a sole, height of a heel;
features of a fabric) are further means of increasing the utility of a
product.
Thus, customization in this industry offers a good opportunity to counterbalance
additional cost in manufacturing by a higher consumers' willingness to
pay. Customization is also favored by more and more suppliers due to the
steadily growing pace of change in fashion cycles, high forecasting problems,
and multi-channel distribution systems. However, the change has just begun
in the fashion industry. Despite various approaches like fast response
supply chain systems, the use of digital models in product design, or
manufacturing robots substituting the traditionally high level of human
labor, the apparel and footwear sector is still dominated by traditional
mass (variant) production systems. Thus, making these industries more
customer centric is both a great challenge and an immense opportunity.
Part VI addresses these challenges and provides a good insight into the
various activities needed to transform an industry from a mass production
system into a customer centric enterprise.
In Chapter 25 Bullinger, Wagner, Kürümlüoglu and Bröcker
present the enabling information technologies for process management using
the example of the footwear industry. Here, the change from mass production
to a made-to-order system forces a complete revision of the processes
and IT-systems that support the various phases of the product life cycle.
Based on the EuroShoe Project within the 5th Framework Program of the
European Community (www.euro-shoe.net), they envision the idea of an Extended
User Oriented Shoe Enterprise. (New) appropriate IT-systems have to be
selected and implemented. The chapter describes the demands of a transition
from mass production towards mass customization in this industry. But
not only IT and process design have to change. Mass customization will
be only successful if appropriate sales systems exist. For example, customized
clothes and shoes cannot be sold exclusively on the internet. The necessity
of taking the measurements of each customer demands a direct interaction
between seller and buyer. This prerequisite is supported by the demand
of many customers for experience shopping or for the opportunity to feel
fabrics and materials before the purchase. Thus, mass customization in
these industries often requires strong cooperation with retail. This is
the theme dealt with in Chapter 26 by Taylor, Harwood, Wyatt and Rouse.
They present a strategic model for implementing mass customization for
clothes on a UK High Street. Although mass customization clothing services
have been available in some stores for over 10 years, they have been limited
to men's suits. In an exploratory empirical study, the authors identify
four stores offering (industrial) made-to-measure clothing and contrast
them with four independent (traditional) tailors. The study provides interesting
insights into mass customization from a retailer's perspective and may
give manufacturers some ideas how to better tune their operations towards
the demands of retail.
A special technology that is discussed often in the context of mass customization
of fashion items is the use of individualized avatars (virtual mirrors).
Gurzki, Hinderer and Rotter show how personalization technologies can
supplement mass customization in the fashion industry in Chapter 27. The
chapter gives an overview of the requirements of business-to-consumer
fashion retailing and the available technologies. It develops an approach
for an online shopping platform with individualized avatars for animated
fashion presentation and integrated natural language text-based customer
consulting features. As discussed above in Chapter 1 of this book: personalization
is a major enabler for mass customization - not only in the fashion industry.
The last two chapters of Part VI specifically address two important means
of becoming more customer centric in the fashion industry. In Chapter
28 Luximon, Goonetilleke and Tsui demonstrate how to achieve better fit
in the footwear industry. Footwear fitting is generally performed using
the two variables of foot length and foot width (or girth), even though
feet and shoes are three-dimensional objects. As a result, the matching
between feet and footwear are quite variable and can be quite unacceptable
even for the same brand of shoes. Footwear fitters speak of 'perfect fit'
even though the term 'fit' appears to be nebulous. The authors propose
a method of quantifying 'fit' based on 3D tools. The proposed footwear
fit quantification can be used to predict potential discomfort and even
fit-related comfort if the material properties of the shoe are known.
The method can also be used to rank different footwear lasts for any given
individual.
However, evaluating the perfect fit of a shoe is one thing, designing
and manufacturing it according to customers' demands is another. The foot
data has to be translated into a customer specific last and shoe design.
Thus, in Chapter 29 Sacco, Vigano and Paris evaluate how virtual reality
technologies and CAD/CAM enable made-to-measure shoe manufacturing in
mass markets. The authors discuss the state of the art of appropriate
technology available and provide a glimpse of the future based on a virtual
shoe design environment. With this system, a designer draws or modifies
the style lines which were created before in the CAD system directly onto
a (virtual) shoe model. Designers can fly-through the environment and
interact directly with the virtual shoe using immersive interface devices.
Such a solution is the starting point for the efficient manufacturing
of customer specific shoes in mass markets.
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