Mass Customization and Footwear: Myth, Salvation or Reality is the only book dedicated to the application of mass customization in a particular industry. By showing examples of how a "mature" manufacturing sector like shoe making can be thoroughly renovated in business and mentality by applying this paradigm; Mass Customization and Footwear: Myth, Salvation or Reality will be bought by practitioners in the footwear sector and postgraduates, researchers and lecturers in the area of mass customization.

Mass Customization and Footwear: Myth, Salvation or Reality is the only book dedicated to the application of mass customization in a particular industry. By showing examples of how a "mature" manufacturing sector like shoe making can be thoroughly renovated in business and mentality by applying this paradigm; Mass Customization and Footwear: Myth, Salvation or Reality will be bought by practitioners in the footwear sector and postgraduates, researchers and lecturers in the area of mass customization.

The MCPC 2014 is a multi‐track conference featuring a combination of high profile keynotes with expert talks, panel discussions, paper sessions, workshops, receptions, and much more. While it is devoted to sharing and discussing the latest research in the field, the MCPC conference has a strong focus on real life applications. Since its beginning, the MCPC conference has had an equal share of participants, practitioners and academics/researchers. This makes the MCPC conference truly unique among many conferences. It strives to connect MCPC thinkers, first movers, entrepreneurs, technology developers, and researchers with people applying these strategies in practice. Twenty years ago Mass Customization was acknowledged as the ”New Frontier in Business Competition”. Ever since, industry has been applying the concept and researchers have developed the topic into a well-established research area and businesses have formed new strategies. More knowledge, methods and technologies are available now than ever before. Along with general Mass Customization topics, this conference addresses Mass Customization from a historical perspective, looking at both mass customization in the past 20 years and towards the new frontiers in the 20 years to come. This book presents the latest research from the worldwide MCPC community bringing together the new thoughts and results from various disciplines within the field.

Although we now have sophisticated algorithms and techniques for determining the shapes and sizes and for matching the fit between shoes and feet, few, if any, of the books currently available cover these new technologies until now. Bringing together high-quality and state-of-the-art contributions from designers, biomechanists, ergonomists, enginee

Mass Customization excites both Researchers and Practitioners because of the possibility to produce customized products with mass production efficiency. Mass Customization - An Exploration of European Characteristics gives an overview on the need for personalisation from a customer perspective, analyses Mass Customization theories and assesses relevant best practices of European and International markets. The results of a survey among more than 500 European customers show a declining willingness of customers to compromise on the issue of suitability of products to their personal needs and preferences, the possibility for companies to break brand loyalty and the influence of immediate availability, delivery time and price to the customer's willingness to take part in the co-creation process. Mass Customization has become important to business because of the difficulties of customers to find what they want despite an increase in product variety for many products over the past decades. The emergence of modern technologies in production and communication, however, allows companies to produce customized products without relinquishing economies of scale. With only few companies having taken this promising path, the authors believe that Mass Customization and Mass Customization related marketing strategies will play an essential role in the future and prompt both market leaders and their competitors to offer customization on a large scale for a vast variety of products.

This book covers a variety of topics in the field of mechanical engineering, with a special focus on methods and technologies for modeling, simulation, and design of mechanical systems. Based on a set of papers presented at the 1st International Conference “Innovation in Engineering”, ICIE, held in Guimarães, Portugal, on June 28–30, 2021, it focuses on innovation in mechanical engineering, spanning from engineering design and testing of medical devices, evaluation of new materials and composites for different industrial applications, fatigue and stress analysis of mechanical structures, and application of new tools such as 3D printing, CAE 3D models, and decision support systems. This book, which belongs to a three-volume set, provides engineering researchers and professionals with extensive and timely information on new technologies and developments in the field of mechanical engineering and materials.

To adapt to global competitive pressures, manufacturers must develop methods and enabling technologies towards a personalized, customer oriented and sustainable manufacturing. Mass Customization and Sustainability defines the two concepts of mass customization and sustainability and introduces a framework to establish a link between the two concepts to answer the questions: Are these two aspects empowering one another? Or are they hindering one another? These questions investigate mass customization as one of the main driving forces to achieve effective sustainability. A methodology to assess the contribution of mass customization to sustainability is developed, providing an assessment model composed by a set of indicators covering the three aspects of sustainability: social, economical and environmental. This is supported and further explained using ideas and new concepts compiled from recent European research. Researchers, scientists, managers and industry professionals alike can follow a set of practical examples and industrial cases, enabling them to easily transfer Mass Customization and Sustainability theoretical concepts into actions to be enforced into their everyday business for gaining competitiveness. Mass Customization and Sustainability also introduces useful concepts for government officials responsible for establishing sustainable policies and regulations, offering methods to compare the results of implementation of such policies.

This book provides the latest models, methods and guidelines for networked enterprises to enhance their competitiveness and move towards innovative high performance and agile industrial systems. In the new global market, competitiveness and economic growth rely greatly on the move toward innovative high performance industrial systems and agile networked enterprises through the creation and consolidation of non-hierarchical manufacturing networks of multi-national SMEs as opposed to networks based on powerful large-scale companies. Network performance can be significantly improved through more harmonious and equitable peer-to-peer inter-enterprise relationships, conforming decentralized and collaborative decision-making models. Traditional hierarchical manufacturing networks are based on centralized models, where some of the actors involved must adapt themselves to the constraints defined by those who are most dominant. Real-world experiences of such models have revealed some major problems due to the centralized vision of the supply chain and the sub-optimal performance of centralized decision-making. For the current highly dynamic markets, this generates major inefficiencies in operation throughout the supply chain. This book collects the latest research regarding non-hierarchical manufacturing networks and provides enterprises with valuable models, methods and guidelines to improve their competitiveness.

This proceedings volume presents the latest research from the worldwide mass customization & personalization (MCP) community bringing together new thoughts and results from various disciplines within the field. The chapters are based on papers from the MCPC 2017. The book showcases research and practice from authors that see MCP as an opportunity to extend or even revolutionize current business models. The current trends of Industrie 4.0, digital manufacturing, and the rise of smart products allow for a fresh perspective on MCP: Customization 4.0. The book places a new set of values in the centre of the debate: a world with finite resources, global population growth, and exacerbating climate change needs smart thinking to engage the most effective capabilities and resources. It discusses how Customization 4.0 fosters sustainable development and creates shared value for companies, customers, consumers, and the society as a whole. The chapters of this book are contributed by a wide range of specialists, offering cutting-edge research, as well as insightful advances in industrial practice in key areas. The MCPC 2017 has a strong focus on real life MCP applications, and this proceedings volume reflects this. MCP strategies aim to profit from the fact that people are different. Their objective is to turn customer heterogeneities into opportunities, hence addressing “long tail” business models. The objective of MCP is to provide goods and services that best serve individual customers’ needs with near mass production efficiency. This proceedings volume highlights the interdisciplinary work of thought leaders, technology developers, and researchers with corporate entrepreneurs putting these strategies into practice. Chapter 24 is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.