Guidelines for the Implementation of Mass Customization in Affordable House-Building Projects

Abstract

Mass customization (MC) is a business strategy that stands for the ability to develop high value-added products within short time frames and at relatively low costs. It emerged from the manufacturing industry and has been applied to several industrial sectors, including housing. However, the segment of affordable housing programs in developing countries has been criticized for having a high degree of product standardization, and failure to meet customers’ specific needs. The aim of this paper is to propose guidelines for implementing mass customization in affordable house-building projects. It is based on a design science research study carried out in a small-sized company, which explored the possibility of adopting mass customization ideas to offer some flexibility for customers while maintaining low costs. The main contributions of this research study are concerned with expanding the current understanding of the components that enable MC to be implemented in the context of house-building companies that adopt traditional construction technologies. From a practical perspective, this investigation outlines several practices that can be introduced for the implementation of MC strategies at a relatively low cost by small-sized house-building companies.