| dc.description.abstract | The focus of this study, Company S, is faced with major supply chain partners (core component suppliers and brand customers), who are all world-class international enterprises. Company S is relatively small, both in capital and scale, as well as bargaining power. Hence, it is not feasible to extend customer forecast and delivery requirements, and shorten core component lead times.
This study looks into the resulting problem of late delivery and attempts to propose an improvement plan for better order fulfilment under these restrictions. There are two major issues causing frequent delivery delays for Company S. First, material procurement lead time plus manufacturing cycle time is longer than customers order forecasts; and second, the original flat BOM structure is not flexible enough to respond to unexpected order adjustments.
This study proposes to implement the “form postponement strategy.” It has to first produce neutral semi-finished product and keep into inventory, and final products can then be assembled with customized features in the shortest possible time after customer firm order. To accomplish this, Company S need to rebuild existing product BOM structure and manufacturing process through modulization design, and apply time postponement strategy to finish different SKU (Stock Keeping Unit). As a result, Company S can quickly response to the market, and enhance company′s competitiveness. | en_US |