Mass Personalization

Radical user integration into the product development process.

Life cycle orientation and sustainability.

Mass Personalization is about a radical focus on the user in industrial manufacturing. It drives forward both the industrial production of individual products and the personalization of mass products — all at a cost that is within the parameters of conventional mass production.

The goals of Mass Personalization are to develop and open up markets for producers by fulfilling user requirements as effectively as possible.

Unlike mass customization, Mass Personalization is not simply about adapting mass-manufactured products to meet customer requirements at the time of manufacture. Mass Personalization also considers changes in users and their needs. It aims to achieve a user-focused adaptation of product features throughout the product life cycle, from development and production through to the product’s use and repurposing, as well as its reuse as a raw material.

Mass Personalization is closely related to digital transformation (data) and biological transformation (biointelligent processes).

Mass Personalization is driven by the latest technological, social and economic developments:

Customization in a globalized market
Segmentation of markets
Product-as-a-service
Development of consumers into prosumers
Share economy
Service-integrated products
Big data
Artificial intelligence
Digitalization of products and artificial intelligence
Industry 4.0
Additive manufacturing methods
Climate neutrality
Sustainable development goals (SDGs)

Batch size 1 at the cost of mass production.

These trends are changing the way we see products and customer individuality in drastic and disruptive ways. The networking of physical products (cyber-physical products) and their integration with activities and services, alongside the switch from product ranges to service offerings and the active integration of users and customers into the product development process, are fundamentally challenging the conventional paradigm of customer-specific mass production or mass customization. There is no longer a linear value chain for a permanent value creation network throughout the product life cycle.