Designing the Supply Chain by Postponement Strategy

Designing and managing supply chains is a complex managerial challenge in today´s competitive business environment. The enterprise faces more demanding customer needs in terms of quality, variety, delivery and competitive pricing challenge. Customer service and reducing costs is the ultimate aim in the designing processes of supply chain. Postponement strategies is used to reconstructing the supply chain to meet the challenge. Three forces and principle of postponement are analyzed in this paper. The model or postponement strategy is formulated for managers to optimal the supply chain structure. The program for developing postponement strategies in designing supply chain is studied deeply. The program includes in four steps: visioning, logistics strategic analyses, logistics planning ,and managing change.