Adaptive customer profile configuration in mass customization

In the twenty-first century, a company has to organize around the customer in order to be a successful and viable firm. Today, the marketplace is customer driven. Customers expect to get what they would like, with a side order of customization. This alteration of traditional organization of a company through the involvement of the customer into the configuration of the final product faces some obvious problems. The fundamental challenge is to avoid the abortion of the configuration process by the customer. The problem of adapting the process of co-creation to different customers can be solved by identification of different customer profiles that suit each individual customer´s needs and limitations. The paper presents one approach in solving the presented problem, by the introduction of a methodology for adaptive involvement of customers as co-creators in mass customization of products and services.