Techno-file: How Science Affects Us

Even Blue Jeans Go High-Tech

by Carol Flaherty

12/10/99 BOZEMAN, Mont. - Salad bars, music you download from the Internet and blue jeans have one thing in common.

Each can be an example of "mass customization." It could just as easily be described by the burger slogan "have it your way." You decide what to put together. Do you want lettuce or jello? Do you want the Irish band U2 to follow Montovani or Steely Dan on your digital recorder? Do you want a 20-inch waist with 40 inch leg inseams on your Levi's?

Whatever it is, you can get it.

Though computers can't take the credit for salad bars, they can for much of the rest of mass customization or "agile manufacturing," as it is also called.

Manufacturers have been into technology since the invention of the loom, and new systems that allow made-to-order goods at mass-production prices are simply the next step. Individual companies undoubtedly will have problems as they try to make what you request match what you get in the mail, but some already have figured out how to change your mouse clicks and measurements into automated scissors cutting out blue denim.

That's what Levi Strauss is doing at a few of its stores. As a story at "altculture.com" put it: "In 1994 (Levi's) introduced a futuristic system of custom-tailoring: measurements . . . taken at Levi's own stores--initially in Cincinnati and New York (were) sent online to a Levi's factory in Tennessee. Assembled automatically to match one of several thousand combinations, the trousers are then sent to the customer . . within three weeks. At a relatively affordable surcharge of $10 over the standard Levi's price, the custom-fit jeans were seen by many as a glimpse of the anticipated revolution in mass-customization . . ."

Many industries are exploring this new route to consumer satisfaction.

Some examples are truly one-of-a-kind, like companies doing custom routing of wood, plastic and aluminum. Others are a vast design smorgasbord from which you decide what to add to your platter. In the latter category are Levi's, Ford Motor Company's "Buyer Connection" web site, and dozens of component products from computers to kitchen cabinets made with a design consultant in a store.

Truly custom production has been around long enough that computer-aided manufacturing has been on college curriculums for more than a decade. Students in technology education courses at Montana State University design complex product prototypes using a computer-aided drafting (CAD) program. That drawing is then converted to a "computer numerical control code" used to control motors that in turn control the cutting of plastic, wood or other materials. The resulting products are often complex and sometimes beautiful.

MSU's course is similar to much mainline computer aided manufacturing (CAM). What's happening to traditional CAD-CAM is that the CAD is moving from the manufacturing plant to the mall.

The same idea is behind bookstores offering on-demand printing. You walk into a bookstore for a book, but find that it is out of print. However, if you are willing to browse for 20 minutes or so, you can pick up your newly printed book at a reasonable price. In principle, that could mean expanded choice for consumers.

The list of companies trying to customize products starts at the smallest shop selling from a one-page web site to most of the Fortune 500 crew.

Even agriculture is getting into the business. In Denmark, the bar-code on a steak can identify who produced it. Maybe someday you'll only buy Bill's Beef, because it is tastes best. The Montana Beef Network is taking preliminary steps that could eventually give buyers such information, though the goal initially is to provide producers with more information about their final product. It could also lead to recognition of beef superior enough to expand Montana markets. As a first step in improving and customizing beef, Montana producers are tagging their steers and following them through the packing plant to find out which cow and bull had offspring with the leanest, most tender meat. Beef producers use that information as another tool to improve their herds.

Mass customization when conducted via the Internet directly from manufacturer to consumer has a rather large disruptive potential, too. As we do more and more direct, what will happen to all the businesses built on buying wholesale and selling retail? Inevitably, some will change, just as they have been changing every few years for the last century. Those that don't change may find that mass customization threatens their livelihoods.

Hopefully, instead of replacing local businesses, mass customization can add to local businesses. I can't imagine buying a dozen metal screws via the Internet and waiting for them to arrive via snail mail, but the local hardware could have a tool that takes basic metal stock and creates just the number and type of screws you need, just like they do for keys.

I have a certain trepidation about the Internet's potential in the mass customization movement. Will we still have locally owned businesses or will the owners of the local Ford and GM dealerships simply become car company employees? Traditionally, a salesperson's pay is nowhere near as high as an owner's. What does that mean for Montana's tax base and traditions of philanthropy?

Bob McTeer, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas was quoted Nov. 19 in the Wall Street Journal as saying "The Internet changes everything. To my dad, business was buying wholesale and selling retail. . . but the Internet's disintermediation is squeezing it all down to wholetail."

Why am I reminded of Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof trying to figure out whether his tradition could flex enough to encompass a new reality?

Send questions or comments to Carol Flaherty, MSU Communications Services, Bozeman, MT 59717: carolf@montana.edu.

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