Open garments - consumer open innovation and Open Manufacturing interaction for individual garments

The phenomenon of user empowerment is present in many facets of life and although taken up first by the music industry, other industries can no longer ignore it. The Textile and Clothing Industry (TCI) as well faces an increasing demand for more user empowerment: the growing number of mass customization sites, ranging from customised garments and footwear to customized furniture, shows the increased need for user customisation of products. This paper presents - resulting from the FP7 research project `Open Garments´¹ - details of the knowledge based MSP business model, a new solution, which empowers the consumer to act not only as designer, but also as producer and seller for individualized garments. The approach is to turn the intellectual capital of social on-line communities, and the flexibility of Open Manufacturing networking by micro-plants and micro-enterprises into successful and sustainable business, enabled through a powerful Service Oriented Architecture and Web2.0 functionalities.