Production Planning with Postponement Strategy Based on Classification of Product Differentiations

Abstract

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US">This paper was motivated by the practices of some Chinese automobile manufacturers who had changed their production planning processes in order to obtain more demand information. We regard their method</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US">s</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US"> as an example of postponement implementation in production planning and name it as production planning postponement (PPP). </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US">F</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US">irst</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US">ly, by</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US"> treat</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US">ing</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US"> PPP as a two-level hierarchical structure problem which is characterized by families and items</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US"> w</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US">e develop an analytical model for evaluating the value of this kind of postponement. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 宋体; mso-fareast-langua...