Thesis-2004-Yang.pdf (5.14 MB)
Download fileA theoretical and empirical investigation into the implementation of postponement
thesis
posted on 2014-10-03, 12:27 authored by Biao YangThe concept of postponement has a long history of academic literature and
practical applications. Features and benefits of postponement have also existed
for many years, but postponement has only recently received more attention. This
development has become mandatory to many companies in view of today's
market and business environment. However, its applications are still not as
widespread as expected. Therefore, I am interested in what factors enable or
hinder the successful implementation of postponement.
Based on the literature review, I first conducted a theoretical study to: (I). Further
develop the concept of postponement to include product development
postponement, purchasing postponement, production postponement and logistics
postponement; (2). Investigate the postponement implications for such issues
around the supply chain as the decoupling point, supply chain integration, power
and control, and capacity planning; and (3). Propose an integrated framework for
postponement applications, where I am also concerned with the development of a
set of general ideals upon which future work can be based.
Then, I carried out a questionnaire survey with 368 British companies in four
industrial sectors (namely electronics, automotive, food and clothing industries).
In doing so, I attempted to investigate the relationships among postponement,
environmental uncertainty, managerial practices and company performance. The
survey data was also used to gain insight to the level of postponement applications
and various barriers to postponement.
History
School
- Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering
Publisher
© Biao YangPublisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2004Notes
A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University.EThOS Persistent ID
uk.bl.ethos.402960Language
- en