Project title
From market to individual customer orientation: a roadmap for mass customisation and personalisation for textile integrated products and services

Abstract
The project is a pilot project answering a call for collective research organised in the framework of CORNET, an Eranet project.
This project addressed the question whether the mass customisation and personalisation (mcp) paradigm can provide an answer for the ever increasing competition and related market share loss of companies active in 4 textiles sectors (carpet, interior textiles, protective clothing and textile for automotive systems). In the mcp business model, the customer becomes involved in the design stage of the product development and customises the product to his personal needs and taste. This approach is today being used in the clothing, shoe and automotive industries and with the increasingly omnipresence of internet is becoming more and more attractive for companies trying to regain the interest of the customer.
Since mcp is generally not well understood by textile companies a first task was to state a definition of use to the textile industry. In order to make the mcp principles clear, analyses  were made of:
- Literature on mcp
- Eu studies of mcp processes in shoe, clothing and automotive industries
- Commercial websites of companies offering customized goods.
Moreover a number of companies offering customized goods in shoe, clothing and automotive were asked for their view on mcp with regard to key technologies enabling mcp, success factors, methodologies and bottlenecks.
 
In a second phase of the project, the current market situation in the 4 selected sectors of the textile industry was mapped. More specifically, the market turbulence and its tendency over the last decade were gauged by means of a questionnaire based on the work of pine (pine, 1993).  Results showed increasing market turbulence, causing the traditional business model to be less adequate. Also the perception of textile companies with regard to their products and process was gauged. Here textile companies expected an increasing product variation and customisation and smaller lot sizes. Textile companies consequently expected the need for more flexible production processes. Also the position of the textile companies in the total supply chain, which is of great importance for mcp based business models, and the position of the end consumer towards customized goods was mapped. The interviews revealed room for improvement of supplier/customer relations for textile companies and an interest in customized goods from the side of the consumer.
 
In a third phase of the project future scenarios were drawn up for mcp based processes in each of the 4 above mentioned textile sectors. For these future scenario’s the bottlenecks for implementation were listed and arranged in an underground like ground map, whereby each station represents a bottle neck. Bottle necks were divided into 3 types:
- Applicable to all sectors
- Applicable to all sectors with sector specific solutions
- Sector specific

In a final stage of the project, scenario’s were formulated that will lead to a solution to overcome the bottle necks.
The project results and other relevant information are gathered on a website: www.myworld-textiles.eu.

Description of the project results
The projects are available at the site of the project: www.MyWorld-textiles.eu.
For each workpackage a report containing a summary of the description of the work and the results is available. The results for each workpackage are summerized hereafter.
The first task (workpackage) describes initiatives in the field of mass customization (MC) in businesses related to textile (shoe, garment and automotive). In the report these initiatives are described. The report also contains the results of interviews performed in companies having an MC based business model. The interviews gauged for the most important factors leading to a sucessful MC based enterprise.
The second report describes the actual situation in textile business in Europe, concerning the market turbulence, the expectations towards customized goods en MC based businesses and the position in the total textile supply chain (i.e. position and relation with suppliers and relation and contact with clients and final customers).
In the third report, for each of the textile sectors that were studied (upholstery, carpet, personal protecive clothing and textile for automotive systems) a mass customized business model scenario is proposed, containing the entire textile supply chain, starting with the raw material up to the delivery of the customized good to the client.
The fourth report described the bottlenecks that could arise when the proposed scenarios are implemented. These bottlenecks are categorized as being 1/common for the 4 sectors that were studied, 2/common for mulptiple sectors, but with sector specific needs and 3/ finally sector specific bottlenecks. The bottlenecks were then visually displayd on a metro like chart type.
The final workpackage included a desciption of the bottlenecks and identification of the actions to be taken to solve the bottleneck problem. These actions could be 1/ need of research and development, 2/ need for the adaptation and implementation of existing solutions, 3/ impelmentation of available solutions to the problem.  The whole of the solutions were then gathered and included in the metro chart. This way, a roadmap was designed, including scenarios based for a mass custmozid business model, bottlenecks to be expected at implementation of the scenario and actions to be taken in order to overcome the bottlenecks.

Innovations & advantages
The project results aim at being a guideline for companies wanting to implement mass customization in their business, offering a possible scenario for such model, pointing towards the bottlenecks to keep in mind and giving a state of the art of the solutions for the problems.

Current stage of development
Project it self is finished and the objectives were atteint. Further research is needed to implement the results in an industrial environment.

Current and potential domain of application
The results are applicable in a wide area of textile subareas. The project focussed first of all on a number of well-defined areas. The methodology used to analyse the problem can be easily applied in other textile related environments.

Partners
- Centexbel, Wetenschappelijk en Technisch Centrum voor de Belgische Textielindustrie, Belgium
- Forschungskuratorium Textil, Germany
- Irspin, Slovenia
- Ditf-mr, Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung Denkendorf, Germany
- Öti, Österreichisches Textil-Forschungsinstitut, Austria
- Univerza v. Mariboru, Slovania
- Tfi, Deutsches Teppich-Forschungsinstitut, Germany
- Bekleidungsphysiologisches Institut Hohenstein e.v, Germany

Person months: 80,45 mm
Project budget: 519 821 €
Project duration: 1/9/2006 - 31/05/2008 (18 months + 3 months extension)

Project coordinator
Fedustria (formerly: febeltex)
Address
Hof-ter-vleestdreef, 5/1
1070 Brussels

Contact person:
Geert Hebbrecht
gh@centexbel.be
www.myworld-textiles.eu/

Other contacts
- Carpet scenario: Centexbel, Geert Hebbrecht, gh@centexbel.be
- Personal protective equipment scenario: Bekleidungsphysiologisches Institut Hohenstein e.V., Silke Westerburg, silke.westerburg@hohenstein.de
- Upholstery scenario: ÖTI - Institut für Ökologie, Technik und Innovation, Andrea Häussermann, haeussermann@oeti.at
- Scenario textile for automotive systems: DITF-MR Denkendorf, Dr. Marcus Winkler, marcus.winkler@ditf-denkendorf.de

Also available: cornet_success_stories.pdf