Nowadays, the competitive situation of companies is characterized by a very strong orientation towards product individualization. The change from a seller to a buyer market has led to a saturation situation within the industrial goodsГ markets where the offer by far exceeds the demand. Companies have to struggle for gainY ing new customers. This major change has increased the customerГs power, which has driven companies to differentiate their products from those of competitors by offering individualized problem solutions (Nilles 2002, p. 1). The customerГs exY pectations with respect to services and physical products have also dramatically risen. Therefore, companies tend to increasingly fragment the markets, sometimes to an extreme level, to where each market is occupied by only one customer (Imarkets of one").

The individualization trend is mainly ascribed to social changes. The high growth of population was a key factor for the emergence of the mass production system, one century ago. But nowadays, especially in the industrial nations, the demographic development shows the population to be steadily decreasing. SimulY taneously, wealth and the demand for luxury continuously increase. Psychologists know that in the postmodern era, the need for change and novelty is becoming as important as survival for human beings. The human behavior is essentially deterY mined by the individual principles and is rarely oriented on the behavior of the others (selfYdetermination). It is also well known that if more and more people possess the same object, then the possession of this object is no longer interesting and loses its attractiveness (Piller 1998, p. 22). All of these reasons have contribY uted to a need for individualization and the demand for products that exactly meet the individual expectations of customers. Mass customization is a business stratY egy that aims at satisfying these individual customer needs nearly with mass proY duction efficiency. The concept emerged in the late 1980s and the term Imass cusY tomization" was coined for the first time by Davis (1987) in his book Ifuture