Component sharing--the use of a component on multiple products within a firm's product line--is widely practiced as a means of offering high variety at low cost. Although many researchers have examined trade-offs involved in component sharing, little research has focused on the impact of...

Internet technology has allowed for a higher degree of decoupling between the information-intensive sales process and the physical process of inventory management than its brick-and-mortar counterpart. As a result, some Internet retailers choose to outsource inventory and back-end operations to...

Using data from the U.S. bicycle industry, we examine the relation among product variety, supply chain structure, and firm performance. Variety imposes two types of costs on a supply chain: production costs and market mediation costs. Production costs include, among other costs, the incremental...

When making lot-sizing decisions, managers often use a model horizon T that is much smaller than any reasonable estimate of the firm's future horizon. This is done because forecast accuracy deteriorates rapidly for longer horizons, while computational burden increases. However, what is optimal...

Assembled product manufacturers often introduce line extensions that share components with existing products, or among themselves, resulting in cost interactions among products because of shared costs, and revenue interactions because of cannibalization. We present a cross-functional approach to...

Product variety in many industries has increased steadily throughout this century. Component sharing---using the same version of a component across multiple products---is increasingly viewed by companies as a way to offer high variety in the marketplace while retaining low variety in their...

Product variety in many industries has increased steadily throughout this century. Component sharing-using the same version of a component across multiple products-is increasingly viewed by companies as a way to offer high variety in the marketplace while retaining low variety in their...