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From ETO to Mass Customization: A Two-Horizon ETO Enabling Process

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Managing Complexity

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics ((SPBE))

Abstract

During the past few years, many companies are playing in their respective market managing one batch of their commercial offer as mass customizer and another as a pure Engineer-to-Order (ETO) company. This newly created business model generates new needs and issues both in the internal organization approaches, and in the supporting IT systems. The competitive advantage of successful firms relies on the effective management of their purely customized orders, with the aim of including relevant knowledge and information in the standard space of action. Therefore, this study aims at conceptualizing this new business reality, presenting an innovative underlying scheme for the ETO enabling process in which the central focus is on the design phase. Furthermore, a set of success practices are represented, discriminated between long and short term horizons. In this context, both technological and organizational aspects have been explored. Lastly, applicability of the proposed framework has been empirically validated through case studies.

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Acknowledgment

This work is funded by the research project through the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation CTI (CTI no.: 15021.1 PFES-ES). The authors would like to thank all participating organizations for sharing their insights in the ETO industry.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. BWI Center für Industrial Management, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Aldo Duchi, Omid Maghazei & Paul Schönsleben

  2. Department of Management Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Filippo Tamburini & Daniele Parisi

Authors
  1. Aldo Duchi
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  2. Filippo Tamburini
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  3. Daniele Parisi
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  4. Omid Maghazei
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  5. Paul Schönsleben
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aldo Duchi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management & Technology, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Jocelyn Bellemare

  2. Department of Management & Technology, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Serge Carrier

  3. Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Kjeld Nielsen

  4. Technology and Innovation Management, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Frank T. Piller

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Duchi, A., Tamburini, F., Parisi, D., Maghazei, O., Schönsleben, P. (2017). From ETO to Mass Customization: A Two-Horizon ETO Enabling Process. In: Bellemare, J., Carrier, S., Nielsen, K., Piller, F.T. (eds) Managing Complexity. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29058-4_8

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