Title: Determining product differentiation strategies under uncertain environment

Authors: Wen-Pai Wang

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taiping, Taichung, Taiwan 411, R.O.C.

Abstract: Owing to product proliferation and expanding high customer service provision, firms nowadays face severe competitive challenges in globalisation. The revised process or product design often involves delaying products differentiation until later production stages. Form postponement applying fuzzy theory and mathematical programming is implemented to formulate a multi-period, multistage assembly network model with multi-product under uncertain leadtimes to find a set of optimal alternative for searching optimal differentiation plans. The inherent fuzziness involved in determination of corresponding leadtimes is handled by expected values of fuzzy numbers, and a set of crisp values of leadtimes had executed by centre of gravity defuzzification.

Keywords: uncertainty; fuzzy sets; leadtimes; lead time; centre of gravity defuzzification; multistage assembly networks; product differentiation strategies; postponement strategies; customer services; technology management; fuzzy logic.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2010.032271

International Journal of Technology Management, 2010 Vol.50 No.2, pp.169 - 181

Published online: 06 Apr 2013 *

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