Xilinx Improves Its Semiconductor Supply Chain Using Product and Process Postponement

Alexander O. Brown, Hau L. Lee and Raja Petrakian
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Alexander O. Brown: Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, 401 21st Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee 37203
Hau L. Lee: Graduate School of Business and the Department of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
Raja Petrakian: Xilinx, Inc., 2100 Logic Drive, San Jose, California 95124

Interfaces, 2000, vol. 30, issue 4, 65-80

Abstract: The semiconductor firm Xilinx uses two different postponement strategies: product postponement and process postponement. In product postponement, the products are designed so that the product's specific functionality is not set until after the customer receives it. Xilinx designed its products to be programmable, allowing customers to fully configure the function of the integrated circuit using software. In process postponement, a generic part is created in the initial stages of the manufacturing process. In the later stages, this generic part is customized to create the finished product. Xilinx manufactures a small number of generic parts and holds them in inventory. The use of these generic parts allows Xilinx to hold less inventory in those finished products that it builds to stock. And for some finished products, Xilinx can perform the customization steps quickly enough to allow it to build to order.

Keywords: INVENTORY—PRODUCTION—MULTI-ITEM; ECHELON; STAGE; INDUSTRIES—COMPUTER—ELECTRONICS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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