The Evolution of Manufacturing: From Craft to Personalization
The Four Eras of Production: How Manufacturing Evolved
The relationship between product volume (how much is produced) and product variety (how different the products are) has shaped the evolution of manufacturing over time. As customer demands have shifted from standardized products to customized and even fully personalized goods, manufacturing systems have adapted to balance efficiency and flexibility.
Each era of production has required different manufacturing systems, optimized for the specific balance between volume and variety. While the fundamental goals have remained the same during each phase (producing goods efficiently and profitably), the way production is executed has changed drastically.
Each era introduced new ways of working, new technologies, and new management philosophies that allowed businesses to meet the demands of their time. However, even as improvements were made within each era, the core production principles of each system remained unchanged—craft production stayed highly manual, mass production remained rigid but efficient, mass customization balanced flexibility with efficiency, and personalized production embraced real-time, decentralized operations.
Below, we explore four key manufacturing systems that have defined production from craft manufacturing to the modern era of mass customization and personalization.
1. Craft Production (Pre-Industrial Era – Low Volume, High Variety)
Craft production was the original form of manufacturing. Before factories existed, artisans and skilled workers crafted products one at a time, custom-built to order. In early history, these products were often created in small workshops, with knowledge passed down through apprenticeships. Over time, craft production improved with better tools and materials, but the fundamental nature of handcrafted, low-volume, high-variety production never changed.
By the Industrial Revolution, more advanced general-purpose machine tools (e.g., mechanical lathes, mills, and presses) allowed skilled workers to produce parts more efficiently, but everything was still manually controlled. The lack of automation or standardized processes meant that craft production was always slow, expensive, and dependent on artisan skill.
What Must Be True for Craft Production to Work?
Highly skilled artisans must be available, trained in specialized craftsmanship and hand-tool operation.
Each product must be unique or high-value to justify the time and cost of manual production.
Workshops must be small-scale, close to their customer base, since production is highly localized.
No reliance on standardization—each item must be built from scratch or adapted in real-time.
Production must allow for variability in both materials and processes, since every item is one-of-a-kind.
Tools must be flexible and manually operated—no dedicated machines optimized for one task.
Management and Systems in Craft Production
Production Planning: Informal and based on master-apprentice knowledge. No formal scheduling—work was completed as orders came in.
Manufacturing Execution: Managed through verbal communication and handwritten job orders.
Quality Control: Entirely dependent on the skill of the worker.
Workplace Organization: Artisans worked at their own pace, with no structured workflow or efficiency focus.
2. Mass Production (1913–1980 – High Volume, Low Variety)
Mass production began with the introduction of the assembly line, first pioneered by Henry Ford in 1913. The revolutionary idea was to break production into repetitive, standardized tasks performed by different workers or machines along a moving conveyor.
At first, mass production was entirely mechanical—workers assembled parts by hand while moving along the line. Over time, this system improved with automation, machine tools, and early industrial robotics, but the fundamental nature of mass production—large volumes of standardized products built as efficiently as possible—never changed.
By the 1950s, mass production became even more sophisticated with dedicated machinery, automated stamping presses, and injection molding, further increasing efficiency while reducing labor requirements. However, the system remained inflexible—producing variety was extremely difficult and costly.
What Must Be True for Mass Production to Work?
High, consistent demand for standardized products is required to justify the massive upfront investment.
Factories must be designed for efficiency, with assembly lines and machines optimized for specific tasks.
Workers must be specialized in repetitive tasks, with minimal training required.
Supply chains must be stable, with materials arriving on a predictable schedule.
Quality control must be built into the system, using statistical process control (SPC) to ensure product consistency.
Production planning must be rigid, with strict schedules and little room for variation.
Management and Systems in Mass Production
Production Planning: Highly structured, using early Material Requirements Planning (MRP) systems for scheduling and forecasting.
Manufacturing Execution: Migrated from clipboards to spreadsheets (Excel-based tracking), but remained largely manual.
Quality Control: Statistical Process Control (SPC) became a standard, reducing defects through measurement.
Lean & Continuous Improvement: Concepts like Just-in-Time (JIT), Kaizen, and waste elimination started gaining traction.
3. Mass Customization (1980s–2020s – Medium Volume, Medium-High Variety)
By the 1980s, global competition and shifting consumer expectations led manufacturers to offer more variety while maintaining efficiency. Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) were introduced, enabling machines to adapt to different product configurations without major downtime.
Early on, this was achieved through CNC machines and programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Over time, robotics, modular assembly systems, and early MES software improved flexibility further, but the core system—balancing efficiency and variety through modular design—remained the same.
What Must Be True for Mass Customization to Work?
Modular product designs must be used, allowing for pre-configured options and late-stage customization without disrupting the entire production process. This requires standardized components that can be easily reconfigured across different product variants.
Flexible automation must be in place, with CNC machines, robotics, and modular workstations that can switch tasks quickly between different product versions. This means reconfigurable tooling, automated setup adjustments, and real-time machine communication.
A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) must be implemented to track product variations in real-time, coordinate machine instructions, and dynamically adjust schedules. Without MES, switching between different configurations would result in inefficiencies and production delays.
Workers must be cross-trained to operate multiple machines and perform different roles based on demand. Unlike mass production, where each worker had a fixed, repetitive task, employees in a flexible manufacturing environment must be able to handle different assembly operations, troubleshoot automation issues, and respond to real-time changes in production.
Supply chains must be more responsive to accommodate fluctuating demand. This includes just-in-time (JIT) inventory systems, dynamic supplier networks, and demand-driven material replenishment to prevent bottlenecks when different product configurations require different components.
Product configuration software must integrate with manufacturing systems, allowing customers to select options in real-time (e.g., choosing a laptop’s processor, RAM, and storage) while ensuring that those choices translate seamlessly into the factory’s production schedule.
Standardized work procedures must be in place despite product variation. Each customization option must be predefined and mapped out in production workflows to avoid excess complexity that could slow down manufacturing.
Management and Systems in Mass Customization
MES Becomes Critical for Process Coordination – Unlike mass production, where MES was often optional, mass customization makes MES a necessity. It ensures that every customization request is executed correctly, machines are reconfigured in real-time, and production flows smoothly despite product variation.
Proliferation of Specialized Software – As manufacturing became more complex, an explosion of specialized software tools emerged to manage different aspects of production, logistics, and quality control. Systems like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), Asset Performance Management (APM), and Supply Chain Management (SCM) tools just to name a few became essential for tracking product variations, optimizing inventory, ensuring machine uptime, and analyzing performance. However, many of these systems were disconnected from each other, leading to data silos and inefficiencies. Different departments relied on separate software tools, making cross-functional collaboration and real-time decision-making more challenging.
Production Planning: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems must work closely with MES to align production with customer orders, inventory availability, and real-time scheduling changes. Without proper synchronization, material shortages, bottlenecks, and scheduling conflicts can derail efficiency.
A More Flexible Workforce Model – Workers needed to adapt to multiple tasks, requiring cross-training programs, role rotation, and skill-based work assignments. Unlike the repetitive jobs in mass production, workers had to understand multiple processes and be problem-solvers on the production floor.
Automated Quality Control with Machine Vision – As customization increased, traditional random sampling inspections were no longer sufficient. AI-driven machine vision systems scanned every unit to detect defects, ensuring consistent quality across multiple variations.
4. Personalized Production (2020s–Future – Low to High Volume, High Variety)
By the 2020s, the demand for fully personalized products had become a driving force in manufacturing. Consumers no longer wanted just configurable options—they wanted one-of-a-kind products designed to their specific needs and preferences. This shift was enabled by advances in digital design tools, AI-driven automation, cloud computing, and real-time data exchange, allowing manufacturers to move beyond mass customization into true personalized production.
Initially, manufacturers experimented with small-batch personalization, offering limited-edition custom products with minimal manual adjustments. However, these methods were expensive and inefficient. Over time, Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) emerged, designed to adapt instantly to new product designs without major retooling or downtime. AI-powered Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Digital Twins, IoT-enabled machines, and autonomous robotics further improved efficiency, allowing manufacturers to produce personalized goods at near mass-production speeds.
Despite these advancements, the fundamental principle of personalized production remained the same—each product was built to order, based on individual customer specifications, rather than pre-defined configurations. Unlike mass customization, where variety was limited by modular design, personalized production eliminated constraints, allowing for infinite product variation.
What Must Be True for Personalized Production to Work?
Production must be data-driven at every level. Instead of manufacturing schedules dictating output, real-time customer inputs, AI-generated product configurations, and automated design optimizations must drive production. Without real-time data synchronization across all systems, personalized production would be impossible.
Product design must be dynamically generated. Unlike in mass customization, where customers select from predefined options, personalized production requires AI-powered design tools that generate unique product blueprints in real-time, ensuring manufacturability while maintaining individualization.
Factories must be fully modular and self-adjusting. Reconfigurable manufacturing cells must automatically adjust machine parameters, tooling setups, and robotic workflows without human intervention. This requires embedded AI decision-making within production equipment.
Every process must be optimized for one-unit production. Traditional economies of scale rely on batch processing, but personalized production must be optimized for cost-effective single-unit runs, meaning tooling, material flow, and scheduling must be structured around one-product-at-a-time workflows.
Quality assurance must be predictive, not reactive. Standardized quality control methods don’t work when every product is different. Instead, real-time sensor analysis, AI-driven defect prediction, and adaptive self-correction must ensure that each personalized item meets quality standards.
Customization must not slow production speed. Unlike in previous eras where added complexity led to slower production times, personalized manufacturing must produce unique products at speeds comparable to mass production, requiring instantaneous data exchange, real-time material allocation, and AI-driven machine sequencing.
Materials and components must be sourced on demand. Supply chains must move from bulk purchasing models to AI-driven micro-supply networks, ensuring that raw materials, 3D printing filaments, and custom parts are acquired only when needed, reducing waste and storage costs.
Management and Systems in Mass Personalization
MES as the Core System – Unlike in previous manufacturing phases, where MES functioned as a process tracking tool, in personalized production, MES is the backbone of the entire operation. It integrates real-time scheduling, machine coordination, supply chain execution, quality control, and order tracking into a single intelligent system. MES continuously receives customer design inputs, translates them into machine instructions, and ensures seamless execution from raw material selection to final product delivery. Without MES as the central control system, personalized production would be impossible.
ERP Systems Evolve to Manage Real-Time Resource Allocation – While ERP in earlier phases focused on forecasting and batch production planning, in personalized manufacturing, ERP shifts to real-time material and financial resource management. It must dynamically synchronize with MES, supply chain platforms, and customer order systems, ensuring that materials, workforce availability, and capital expenditures align perfectly with on-demand production requirements.
Cloud Computing Becomes the Primary Infrastructure – Traditional on-premise IT systems can’t support the real-time data exchange required for personalized production. Cloud computing enables instantaneous collaboration between design, production, supply chain, and logistics systems, allowing global manufacturers to operate decentralized production networks while maintaining full synchronization across all facilities.
Data Storage Transitions from Isolated Databases to Unified Data Lakes – Unlike in previous manufacturing phases, where different departments used separate data silos, personalized production requires a unified, fully accessible data structure. Instead of isolated relational databases, manufacturers transition to data lakes, where AI-driven analytics can process real-time information across design, production, logistics, and customer service. This enables better decision-making, predictive analytics, and automated process optimization.
End of Point-to-Point Integrations – All Systems Access All Data in Real-Time – In previous manufacturing models, data flowed through rigid, point-to-point integrations between ERP, MES, PLM, and supply chain platforms, creating inefficiencies and bottlenecks. In personalized production, data must be instantly available to all systems, at all times, requiring a fully integrated digital ecosystem where MES, ERP, SCM, WMS, CMMS, PLM, and AI-driven analytics work from a single source of truth. This eliminates manual data transfers, reduces errors, and enables automated, AI-driven decision-making at every level of production.
Beyond Manufacturing: The Next Era of Intelligent Production
The evolution of manufacturing has always been about more than just efficiency—it’s about adaptation. From the hands of skilled artisans to the hum of AI-driven factories, every shift has been fueled by the need to meet the changing demands of customers, markets, and technology. But we are now entering a new era, one where the traditional trade-offs between volume and variety are no longer constraints, and where intelligence, autonomy, and real-time decision-making will redefine what’s possible.
The future of manufacturing isn’t just about producing goods—it’s about orchestrating entire ecosystems of production, customization, and instant delivery. It’s about turning data into action, predictions into precision, and personalization into scale. As we stand on the edge of this transformation, the real question is not just how manufacturing will evolve, but how we will evolve with it.
But Does it Pay Off?
According to a 2024 study published in Heliyon, mass customization capability (MC) significantly improves sustainable performance (SP) in manufacturing SMEs in China. The study, based on 339 SMEs, found that flexible manufacturing competencies, modular product architecture, and customer relationship management are the strongest drivers of MC. Specifically, companies with flexible production systems were better able to customize products efficiently, while those using modular product designs could offer greater customization while maintaining cost-effectiveness. Additionally, customer relationship management was a key factor, as firms that actively engaged with their customers achieved better customization and long-term sustainability.
The research also found that competitive pressure accounted for nearly 50% of the influence on sustainable performance, showing that firms in highly competitive markets are more likely to implement sustainable practices to stay ahead. Meanwhile, smaller firms benefited more from customization than larger firms, likely due to their agility and ability to adapt quickly. The study also revealed that companies engaged in cross-border e-commerce saw up to 13% greater sustainability gains from customization than those operating only in domestic markets. These findings suggest that SMEs should invest in modular product design, customer engagement, and global e-commerce strategies to maximize the sustainability benefits of mass customization.
References:
Y. Koren: The Local Factory of the Future for Producing Individualized Products. The Bridge, NAE Journal, Spring 2021, pp 20 – 26. www.nae.edu/theBridge.
Guan Hui, Abdullah Al Mamun, Mohammad Masukujjaman, Zafir Khan Mohamed Makhbul, Mohd Helmi Ali, The relationship between mass customization and sustainable performance: The role of firm size and global E-commerce, Heliyon, Volume 10, Issue 6, 2024, e27726, ISSN 2405-8440, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e27726.
