1Implications of Form Postponement to Manufacturing (original) (raw)
Related papers
Evaluation of postponement structures to accommodate mass customization
Journal of Operations Management, 2005
In order to meet increasing customer demands for more diverse product offerings, firms are revising their supply chain structures to accommodate mass customization. The revised structures often involve delaying the delivery of the products until after the customer orders arrive, termed time postponement (TP), or delaying the differentiation of the products until later production stages, termed form postponement (FP). We develop models representing possible implementations of the TP and FP structures and compare their performance in total supply chain cost and expected customer waiting times. We find that once the number of different products increases above some threshold level, the TP structure is preferred under both performance metrics.
Form postponement: a decision-making perspective
18th Annual POMS …, 2007
Operations management literature defines form postponement as the deferment of product differentiation activities through changes in the architecture and/or the manufacturing and distribution process of a product family. We contend that when form postponement is meant to reduce the risk and associated costs of specifying the wrong mix of product variants, it is more appropriately defined as the deferment of production planning decisions. We elaborate on this concept, proposing a notion of form postponement from a decision-making perspective, and develop an operational procedure to identify and quantify all opportunities for form postponement relative to a given product family. We demonstrate that each potential for form postponement can be divided in two components, one related to the forecasting and master scheduling process and the other related to product and/or process redesign. We empirically illustrate the fact that the former component, usually neglected in the literature, can account for more than 50% of the total potential for form postponement within a product family. We conclude by setting directions for future decision-making research on form postponement.
International Journal of Production Research, 2009
In this paper we analyse the use of form postponement based on the positioning of differentiation point and stocking policy. Six classes of manufacturing configurations are identified based on the choice of whether or not form postponement is employed and the decision regarding the stocking policy for the final product configurations as well as for the generic component. Analytical evaluation methods based on queuing models are used to assess operational measures for each class of configuration and solution algorithms are developed to determine the optimal positioning of differentiation point and the optimal stocking levels. This allows us to compare the relative merits of all manufacturing configurations based on their respective best performances. The results of numerical experiment show how different operational parameters may influence the choice of optimal configuration, the preference of early or late postponement, and the relative cost savings obtained from employing form postponement.
1 007-0323 Form Postponement : a Decision-Making Perspective
2007
Operations management literature defines form postponement as the deferment of product differentiation activities through changes in the architecture and/or the manufacturing and distribution process of a product family. We contend that when form postponement is meant to reduce the risk and associated costs of specifying the wrong mix of product variants, it is more appropriately defined as the deferment of production planning decisions. We elaborate on this concept, proposing a notion of form postponement from a decision-making perspective, and develop an operational procedure to identify and quantify all opportunities for form postponement relative to a given product family. We demonstrate that each potential for form postponement can be divided in two components, one related to the forecasting and master scheduling process and the other related to product and/or process redesign. We empirically illustrate the fact that the former component, usually neglected in the literature, ca...
An integration of assembly planning by design into supply chain planning
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2013
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