A Service-Oriented Architecture for Mass Customization—A Shoe Industry Case Study

The ability of enterprises to react quickly to changes in the business environment is becoming imperative. mass customization (MC) is introduced as a competitive strategy for diversified markets by combining principles of mass production and individualization. Here, information systems (IS) are needed for supporting the entire value chain, especially for managing product and process complexity. Based on a dynamic view of enterprises working together, context-specific IT-services must be provided for successful MC. In software engineering, a similar concept called service-oriented architecture (SOA) is receiving lot of attention. By integrating all the elements of business networks (including organizations and IS) in a loosely coupled manner, technical representation of value processes can be established. In this paper, we present a SOA-based approach for MC and illustrate it with a case study from the shoe industry, based on a publicly-funded research project called "EwoMacs."