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From mass production to mass customization: Postponement of inventory differentiation
Author(s) -
Graman Gregory A.,
Bukovinsky David M.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of corporate accounting and finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1097-0053
pISSN - 1044-8136
DOI - 10.1002/jcaf.20169
Subject(s) - postponement , mass customization , production (economics) , business , personalization , operations management , marketing , engineering , economics , microeconomics
Customers are demanding. They want customized products and services, and they want their orders filled more quickly than before. To cope, companies often struggle to predict customer demand while remaining both efficient and flexible. As this article explains, one strategy for addressing a demanding marketplace is postponement, which refers to organizing operations so that, at the point of differentiation, work‐in‐process can be made into multiple versions of the product as close as possible to the point when demand is known. Postponement involves delaying the movement or assembly of mass‐produced product until after a customer order is received. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.