The Mass Customization Projects Enactment in Practice: Traditional Versus Agile Project Management

Mass customization (MC) is an important concept for industrial companies. MC can be seen as the customization of products and services according to individual customer demands without sacrificing cost, delivery time or product quality. Moreover, MC is a concept that is challenging to implement. Thus, even after three decades of intensive research on MC and vast experiences in industrial applications, the question of how to approach successful implementation remains open. Specifically, even with MC enablers (i.e., technologies, tools, and techniques to implement MC) defined, the issue of successful enactment of MC projects in practice remains open. In response to this issue, the present research investigates MC project challenges, compares, and analyses classical waterfall project management and agile project management to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the project management models for the successful enactment of MC projects in the industry. This way the research starts the discussion of traditional versus agile project management for MC projects which is lacking in the literature. The research concludes by suggesting that even a hybrid project management approach should be considered for the successful enactment of the MC projects.