Zebra Delay Strategy, Asia Pacific Supply Chain

Along with the booming of IT technology especially e-biz, the consumer demand tends to be more variable and customized. The traditional mass production with less customization has been challenged all days and may lead to disadvantage on responsiveness and flexibilities.The paper starts from the topic of new challenge upon supply chain which IT industry is facing under massive production scenario, and discussed from three angles. Firstly, the origin of postponement concept and research history is introduced, and the postponement strategy was classified in terms of time, location and feature. The precondition and implement criteria are brought out. Secondly the paper submits its creativeness on the decision process of CODP repositioning with a three-dimensional model, reinforce the postponement of CODP enable enterprise be more agile and flexible whistle keep less complexity and aggregated cost down. Cost-margin quantitative analysis of ZARA supply chain after implement of postponement was also applied to be anther innovation of this research. Finally the paper work through Zebra's application of postponement strategy in its Asia-pacific supply chain, justifying the methodologies which were presented in prior chapters.This paper is on the base of previous researches and concept of postponement while testifies the theories by many case study in live. The theory is integrated with practice closely and massive tables or figures are presented to deliver the opinion of paper itself. Which should be highlighted are new CODP repositioning model under mass customization, the drives of decision-making are induced on three dimensions, that is, Value Density of Goods, Customization Degree and Market Fluctuations. Besides, hypnosis-analysis method was deployed to quantitatively evaluate the benefits of postponement. The framework of this paper goes as below.The 1st chapter begins from the research report of Analysis International Company and figured out the background and objective of the study on postponement. It also built the infrastructure of the paper.The 2nd chapter descripts the development of postponement theory and summarizes the status of research in China and foresees the future direction of study, and then introduces the content of this paper.The 3rd chapter analyses the concept and outline of postponement with case of Dell's massive customizations, brings forward the precondition of this strategy and classifies the postponement by time, location and form.The 4th chapter spent more words on reposition of CODP, which is critical decision to make in supply chain management. The chapter analyses the process of decision-making through new three-dimensional model and proof test the theory by the hypnosis data of cloth maker, ZARA Company.The 5th chapter implements the postponement strategy on the supply chain redesigning of Zebra Asia pacific. Base on the visiting of existing supply chain, market environment and product characteristics, this chapter follows the process of CODP positioning with the three-dimensional model and cost-margin analysis methodology.The last chapter comes down to the conclusion across all facts and solutions, reinforces the key points of this paper and evaluate the potential exploring space of this research finally.