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Re-examining Postponement Benefits: An Integrated Production-inventory and Marketing Perspective

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Mass Customization

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Advanced Manufacturing ((SSAM))

Abstract

This chapter presents a new perspective to obtain a better understanding of postponement benefits. This new perspective tries to address the important alignment between the production-inventory and marketing functions, under which we are able to obtain a more complete view on how postponement may enhance firms’ profitability. We developed stylised models to capture the interactions between several factors including inventory, lead time, price and product variety. Through numerical examples we show how postponement facilitates the attainment of a higher profit as the result of improved capability in compromising product variety and delivery lead time, on top of cost savings associated with reduced inventories.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre, Cardiff University, CF10 3 EU, Cardiff, UK

    Hartanto Wong & Mohamed Naim

Authors
  1. Hartanto Wong
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  2. Mohamed Naim
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Industrial and Transportation Engineering Department, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Osvaldo Aranha, 99, 90040-020, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

    Flavio S. Fogliatto

  2. Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Giovani J. C. da Silveira

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Wong, H., Naim, M. (2011). Re-examining Postponement Benefits: An Integrated Production-inventory and Marketing Perspective. In: Fogliatto, F., da Silveira, G. (eds) Mass Customization. Springer Series in Advanced Manufacturing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-489-0_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-489-0_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-84996-488-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-84996-489-0

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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