Mass Customisation and Highly Individualised Solutions. Stretching Mass Customisation Beyond the Traditional Paradigm of Industrial Production.

Globalisation if creating large changes in our social and economic system, whereas

demand patterns are becoming more and more diversified and highly localised. The

difference between global production and local demand relates to a paradigmatic shift

in the way of looking at production and consumption patterns. The reference to a

paradigm shift helps emphasising the inherent limits of industrial production and the

elements of changes brought about by the possibility to generate highly individualised

solutions. The concept of mass customisation was introduced to extend the domain of

industrial production beyond its original limitations, however it is strongly linked to the

paradigm of industrial production and not always usable to support and explain new

ways of organising value creation. This paper proposes an analysis of this paradigm shift

through three cases, which emphasise some elements of mass customisation that are

still relevant to the new paradigm. At the same time the paper emphasises the limits of

this concept and the need for a new perspective view to interpret the ongoing change in

production and consumption systems.