“Integrating the Product Modularity Decision with Supply Chain Strategy” by Professor Glen M. Schmidt
IIM SEMINAR
Speaker:
Professor Glen M. Schmidt
avid Eccles Professor of Business
Department of Operations and Information Systems
University of Utah
Abstract:
Kamrad, Schmidt and Ulku (2017) provide a framework as to when products should be designed to be integral, modular-in-production, or modular-in-use. The type of modularity (if any) determines the product’s fan-out point (the point in the assembly process where the product fans out into the product variants that are offered to customers) and also has implications on the product’s push-pull point (the point in the assembly process where inventory is held waiting for a customer order or for purchase). In contrast, Van der Rhee, Schmidt and Tsai (2017) provide a framework for helping craft a supply chain strategy – that is, they offer a heuristic to determine where in the supply chain to hold inventory (before, at, and/or after the fan-out point), given the product modularity decision (i.e., given the fan-out point). We discuss the interaction of these two frameworks – that is, we begin to integrate the product modularity decision with the development of supply chain strategy.
