Founding Membership Opportunities for New MIT Initiative

The MIT Smart Customization Group is an MIT-Industry collaboration devoted to improving the ability of companies to efficiently customize products and services in various industries and for diverse customer groups. This industry interest group aggregates the key players in the area of mass customization and strives to become a vital community of practice in this field.

It is hosted by the MIT Design Lab, an interdisciplinary center at MIT bridging design, architecture, engineering, and management research. Its faculty consists of William J. Mitchell, Marvin Minsky, Frank T Piller, Ryan Chin, as well as other members from throughout MIT.

New: The MIT Smart Customization Group website hosted by the MIT Design Laboratory: http://design.mit.edu/smartcustomization/index.htm

Objectives and benefits of the Smart Customization interest group:

• Advancing our knowledge of the underlying principles to effectively and efficiently provide custom products and services - to master smart customization.
  
  
• Establishing a productive group of executives who exchange information and network with each other, and furthermore, who effectively use new models, concepts and the results of the latest research within the group context.
  
  
• Industry members will become familiar with, and able to articulate methods of mass customization; become familiar with recent research in the area of mass customization; to think critically in this area; and to articulate their own methods.
  
• Get the latest research from focused research smart customization initiatives at MIT and other leading universities and research labs. Actual projects of the interest group's faculty include the House_n Project on mass customization and system thinking in the building industry, the Concept Car Project (automotive customization), the MC-Strategies initiative, and the Exploring the Creative Consumer Program.
  
• Group members will develop or extend their own mass customization initiatives more successfully.

Planned Events in 2007

• Spring 2007: First 2-day get-together at MIT: Topic: "Who and What is Smart in Customization today?"
  
  
• October 2007: Special program for the MCPC 2007 World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (www.mcpc2007.com) at MIT. This is the biannual key event in the area. Group participants will get a customized conference program and pre- and post-conference briefings by the conference chairs to get the ultimate learning experience from this event.
  
  
• December 2007: Second 2-day get-together, preferably at a member company.

Terms of Membership

(1) The MIT Mass Customization Interest Group is an MIT-Industry Collaboration devoted to improving the ability of comopanies to efficiently customize products and services in various industries and for diverse customer groups. This industry interest group aggregates the key players in the area of mass customization. The Lab is chaired by Professor Bill Mitchell, Director of the MIT Design Lab and the Smart Cities Group of the MIT Media Lab.

(2) Lab member companies ("members") work on their own mass customization agenda as they choose. The MIT interest group facilitates this process by interaction and exchange between members during the group meetings. There is no obligation for members to share the experiences and techniques they have developed or used with other members. Direct competitors are not invited to join the group unless affected members agree that this is acceptable.

(3) The interest group holds two or three two-day meetings per year. Group meetings shift between MIT and member sites (there is however no obligation for a member to host a meeting). At meetings held at MIT, the primary focus of presentations and discussion is on recent research on mass customization and related topics. At meetings held at member sites, the primary focus is on methods employed by those members, and discussions of recent mass customization projects that have been carried out using new concept development methodologies.

(4) For membership terms and the conditions of joining the group, please contact the Program Manager.

Program Manager and Interest Group Coordinator:

Betty Lou McClanahan
Program Manager, MIT Media Laboratory
20 Ames Street, Room E15-228
Cambridge, MA 02142-1308
Telephone: 617-253-0630. Fax: 617-258-6264. Email: bl [ at ] media.mit.edu

For more information regarding the general content of the interest group,
please contact Professor Frank Piller
617 326 3748; piller [ at ] iimcp.org