Lean Customisation and Co-creation: Supplying Value in Everyday Life

This chapter does not address a specific research question. It mainly serves to present a new way of thinking about Mass Customisation. Assuming mass production as the underlying paradigm since its birth, this assumption is to be abandoned because this paradigm has reached its limits and cannot serve as a reference any more. As lean thinking takes the lead in the post-industrial era, mass customisation gains new meaning under the term lean customisation. Lean customisation abandons mass as the symbol of economies of scale for the sake of economies of one and, in so doing, becomes important at all levels of the value positing chain in reducing waste and supporting surrounding sustainability. In this chapter, the significance of lean customisation is disclosed under the premises of three levels of customisation: technical, customer value through co-creation, and the supplying of this value. As a result, a new way of thinking is initiated in order to accommodate very diverse management challenges in which ethics are naturally part of the value positing process and not artificially incorporated. It will be shown that, in reality, risk is meaningful in ethical terms and not just within a technical calculable context.