Postponement: an inter-organizational perspective

In view of the slow rate of postponement applications, this paper attempts to examine postponement strategies from an inter-organizational perspective. The paper first reviews the literature on different postponement strategies (including logistics postponement, production postponement, purchasing postponement, and product-development postponement) mainly within the context of the supply chain or supply network. Then, two research questions are formulated. This is followed by the investigation into the inter-organizational structure and capacity planning in postponement applications. The paper concludes with some suggestions for further research.