Abstract
Companies that compete in a global market have to manufacture and configure products to meet the diverse needs and demands of customers. Such diverse needs can result from geographical differences, government regulations, or simply differences in customer preferences and tastes. Uncertainty in the market place makes it extremely difficult to forecast product demands accurately. This results in high inventory costs and low product availability. Postponement is a strategy whereby the final configuration of a product is delayed as much as possible, usually until a customer order is received. Postponement ranges from simple packaging and labeling, bulk packing or special customization, to more complex forms such as localization, assembly and test, and final product integration. Effective implementation of postponement requires careful redesign of the products and the processes involved. In this paper, we describe a conceptual framework for design for postponement, and the appropriate cost drivers that can be used to assess postponement strategies for a company.
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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Lee, H.L., Billington, C. (1994). Designing Products and Processes for Postponement. In: Dasu, S., Eastman, C. (eds) Management of Design. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1390-8_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1390-8_6
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