| With the intensification of market competition and the more personalized and diverse demand from customers, servicing to order has been widely adopted among many businesses so as to quicken their response. The way of assembling components also becomes popular for it can satisfy the customers effectively. Therefore, Assemble-To-Order (ATO) has become one of the main strategies in modern industry. However, assembly system also means high requirements of effective and timely supply. The uncertainty of one component will not only affect the sales of final products, but also may cause the loss and waste of other related components. The purchasing strategies of components is playing an important role in assembly systems.The problem of sourcing components for ATO manufacturers is considered in this paper. The situation where one of the components faces uncertainty in the supply process and part of demand information is updated before the sale season is considered. Based on the literature studying sourcing decision in assembly systems, models of separate ordering and combined ordering are developed respectively. The analysis of the optimal ordering decisions and some comparisons are given as well.First, develop models of separate ordering and combined ordering respectively. In separate ordering, components with uncertain supply are ordered first to avoid the mismatch loss. Combined ordering means all components are ordered concurrently so as to gain as much demand information as possible. Study the two ordering strategies respectively and verify the existence and uniqueness of the optimal solution. Second, analyze the effect of system and market environment parameters on the optimal ordering and profit. Furthermore, restrict the analysis to three special cases to compare the two ordering strategies and make a comparison in general cases through numerical experiment and provide a better understanding of production decisions. |
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