Mapping the Scientific Research on Mass Customization Domain: A Critical Review and Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Researchers of the Mass Customization domain face not only challenges of proper and timeless identification of latest practical trends, but also difficulties in rational analyses on the numerous existing scientific studies in this field as well as a need for a comprehensive and multidimensional state-of-the-art overview of the Mass Customization research domain in the last three decades. Therefore, the present research article aims to provide a critical standpoint and reveal the main research directions and content at systemic, bibliometric and historical research levels in the period of 1990–2020. Four types of bibliometric clustering techniques and a visualization of results in a format of two-dimensional maps by the VOSviewer software were applied in the analysis on 1783 scientific papers from the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection. The analysis reveals six historical periods in the Mass Customization research domain, from which, in the last three decades, three are identified as influencing modern Mass Customization research areas and objects. Results confirmed a shift from a stand-alone scientific approach to the customization of tangible products in the manufacturing field and their risk management, to a hybrid scientific approach with a focus on the customization of non-tangible products and personalized customer behavior in online environments.

Mapping Space Allocation with Artificial Intelligence - An approach towards mass customized housing units

“…However, considering the technology development over the last decades, authors in the MC field, such as Wang et al (2017); Bunster, Noguchi and Kvan (2016); Baranauskas, Raišienė, and Korsakienė (2020), believe that big data, data mining, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning algorithms will reshape the discipline. This change might occur due to these new intelligent methods that can extract patterns and discovering knowledge within data.…”

Application of customisation and personalisation in digital solutions of the non-life insurance market: a case study of Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian e-sales platforms

“…Moreover, in organisational practice, a rapid orientation towards the customer-centric approach, external demanddriven supply, and value creation via online platforms or process automation tools undoubtedly influences the content and development of these two concepts (Hu, 2013;Walczak, 2014;Tiihonen & Felfernig, 2017). Historically, these practical outcomes also reflect a transformation of the late 2000s from the traditional version concept to the electronic Mass Customisation and Mass Personalisation concepts, which were driven by customer demand (Baranauskas et al, 2020). During this period, the Mass Customisation concept became a more interdisciplinary research field by including features of process management, marketing, engineering, information technology, and other related scientific domains.…”

“…During this period, the Mass Customisation concept became a more interdisciplinary research field by including features of process management, marketing, engineering, information technology, and other related scientific domains. In the recent decade, the rise of the combined electronic Mass Customisation and Personalisation (e-MCP) concepts has been identified, which is driven not only by customer demand but also by big data and big data analytics (Pollard et al, 2016;Xu et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2019;Baranauskas et al, 2020).…”

Agricultural Value Chains. A Bibliometric Review and Analysis.

“…Bibliometry -and its scientific development-is based on the search for regular statistical behaviors over time and the production of scientific information on consumption (Akinlolu et al, 2020;Ardanuy, 2009;Baranauskas et al, 2020;González-Torres et al, 2020), allowing qualitative and quantitative changes to be evaluated (De Las Heras et al, 2018). The Thomson Reuters Web of Science database is currently the main reference for scientific research worldwide (Llorent-Bedmar & Sianes-Bautista, 2018).…”