The conference had two top-of-the-class keynotes : Dr. Frank Piller
(MIT/TUM) and Professor Jarmo Suominen (MIT/UIAH). Dr. Piller’s
keynote was about how the future of value creation is customer driven
and how mass customization, customer co-creation and open innovation
will change the future of customer interaction.

Professor Suominen lectured about the customer experience and how it
will develop while customer uses multiple different channels. Managing
the cross channel experience is still an enormous development
challenge for many organizations struggling to figure out the value of
different channels.

As the MCPF2006 was sponsored my MASSI research and development
project concentrated on technology industries of Finland, most of the
presentations and participants were from B2B sector. Two industrial
presentations in addition to keynotes and research presentations
lightened the mass customization challenges. Advisor Juhani
Kangasniemi from Technology Industries of Finland (an industry body)
talked about changes in competitive environment and development
challenges. Development Manager Antti Martikainen from Metso Minerals
explained how changing the production mode into mass customization
required extensive long term development of the whole organization. He
also stressed on the importance of holistic view when dealing with
mass customization. Now we have reached a situation where one-sided
approaches aren?t enough to be able to succeed in mass customization.

The program of MCPF2006 can be found at
http://www.fimcp.fi/forum/program.php for further information on
topics handled in the forum.