New frontiers for manufacturing in mass customization

The new environment in which firms have to operate in the 21/sup st/ century requires new approaches to manufacturing. Mass customization is a general trend that is more and more widespread, being felt as the paradigm for the future. On the manufacturing point of view, much work must be done to adequate manufacturing systems to the new requirements, as traditional solution (both transfer lines and FMS) don't seem to efficiently face the new environment. Anyway, not only the productive area is involved in such evolution, but also managerial and organizational aspects do. This paper tries to analyze the relation between the mass customization paradigm and manufacturing systems, describing flexibility and reconfigurability as possible means to face the new scenario.