Postponement Strategies in Supply Chain Management

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

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2. Introduction

   • T.C. Edwin Cheng, Jian Li, C.L. Johnny Wan, Shouyang Wang

   Pages 1-17

3. Analysis of Pull Postponement by EOQ-based Models

   • T.C. Edwin Cheng, Jian Li, C.L. Johnny Wan, Shouyang Wang

   Pages 19-41

4. Analysis of Postponement Strategy by EPQ-based Models

   • T.C. Edwin Cheng, Jian Li, C.L. Johnny Wan, Shouyang Wang

   Pages 43-79

5. Evaluation of a Postponement System with an (r, q) Policy

   • T.C. Edwin Cheng, Jian Li, C.L. Johnny Wan, Shouyang Wang

   Pages 81-108

6. Simulation of a Two-End-Product Postponement System

   • T.C. Edwin Cheng, Jian Li, C.L. Johnny Wan, Shouyang Wang

   Pages 109-123

7. Application of Postponement: Examples from Industry

   • T.C. Edwin Cheng, Jian Li, C.L. Johnny Wan, Shouyang Wang

   Pages 125-132

8. Conclusions, Implications and Future Research Directions

   • T.C. Edwin Cheng, Jian Li, C.L. Johnny Wan, Shouyang Wang

   Pages 133-136

9. Back Matter

   Pages 137-166

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Postponement strategy is one of the major supply chain management (SCM) pr- tices that has a discernible impact on rms’ competitive advantage and organi- tional performance. Postponement is a mass customization strategy that captures the advantages of both mass production and mass customization. Recent research studies have identi ed four common postponement strategies, namely pull, logistics, form and price postponement. The former three postponement strategies are linked to production and manufacturing, while the last one is a pure pricing strategy. They aim at balancing the costs and bene ts of mass production and mass customization. Practical examples of postponement can be found in the high-tech industry, food industry and other industries that require high differentiation. However, empirical studies have found that postponement may not be an evident SCM practice compared to the other practices. In addition, postponement has both positive and negative impacts on a supply chain. The advantages include following the JIT principles, reducing end-product inventory, making forecasting easier and pooling risk. The high cost of designing and manufacturing generic components is the main drawback of postponement. Thus, the evaluation of postponement strategy is an important research issue and there have been many qualitative and quantitative models for analyzing postponement under different scenarios.

• Operations Management
• Postponement Strategy
• Quantitative Analysis
• Supply Chain Management
• decision support
• distribution
• manufacturing
• simulation
• supply chain managment

• Dept. Logistics & Maritime Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong/PR China

  T. C. Edwin Cheng

• Thehnology (BUCT), School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Chemical, Beijing, China, People's Republic

  Jian Li

• , Dept. Logistics & Maritime Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China, People's Republic

  C. L. Johnny Wan

• , Academy of Mathematics & System Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, People's Republic

  Shouyang Wang

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