考慮客製化程度之供應鏈延遲策略

Abstract

延遲策略(Postponement Strategy)是供應鏈管理上降低存貨成本與需求變異的方法。在產品設計之初利用零組件的模組化、標準化與產品流程再造等方法，使附加價值相對較低的共同組件於生產流程前端製造，而將產品差異化的時間點儘可能地延後到生產流程的後端，待顧客需求較確定時再實行製造。本研究將大量客製化的概念(Mass Customization)的概念與供應鏈延遲策略做結合，先分別建立客製化程度高與客製化程度低之供應鏈網路架構，分析其在實施延遲策略前之利潤，作為廠商考慮生產高客製化產品、低客製化產品或通用品之參考。接著探討實施標準化延遲策略與模組化延遲策略對廠商在成本與效益之影響，最後比較不同情境下，何種延遲策略(標準化延遲策略或模組化延遲策略)對高度客製化或低度客製化之供應鏈較有利潤。本研究結論顯示：藉由將產品差異化的程序點延後，可有效降低產品的需求變異。然而延遲策略也使得生產程序改變而引發相關成本的支出，例如：投資成本、存貨成本、前置時間的增加。因此，在收入不變(P×Q)下，廠商應實施何種延遲策略端視於該種延遲策略能讓廠商有效降低需求變異並使延遲策略新增成本較小。

Postponement Strategy is a method which is used to reduce the demand uncertainty and increase the process flexibility in supply chain management. By means of standardization and modularization, products could share common components or processes at the initial stages, and be customized into specific ones at the later stages. This research combines postponement strategy with the emerging concept of mass customization. By differentiating two supply chains based on soft and hard degrees of customization, mathematical models that capture the costs and benefits of customization are developed for analysis purposes. Next, these models are applied to analyze the trade-off between costs and benefits when firms implement the postponement strategy. In the end, this thesis discusses the fact that which postponement strategy, either standardization or modularization, performs better under the same circumstances. The results of this research show that delaying the time of differentiation could help firms reducing the uncertainty of demand. However, it also results in increasing costs such as investment cost, inventory cost, and longer lead time of production. Therefore, firms should consider the costs and benefits of each postponement strategy and put into practice with the one which performs better.