應用推遲策略於TFT LCD產業上游廠商生產供應鏈之分析

Applying Postponement Strategy in an Upstream Production Supply Chain Analysis for TFT LCD Industry

推遲策略乃供應鏈管理所廣泛應用的一種策略：就是藉由產品規格或製程的重新設計，將產品的差異點儘可能地延後生產，直到確認客戶訂單之後，再完成最後的差異化生產；或是藉由存貨的集中控管，直到需求確定之後，再進行最後配送的一種策略。本文針對一家TFT LCD產業上游代表性玻璃基板製造公司的生產供應鏈程序進行深入了解，依據推遲策略建立數學規劃模式，採用基因演算法求解，並分析相關結果。模式參數數據來源為建廠相關資料，研究結果與分析對個案公司的製程規劃提供了決策所需的科學依據。

Customization is an important concept in modern business, but it also causes the increase of the management cost and the decrease of the scale of economy. There is a trade-off effect to the advantage of customization. Postponement strategy is often applied in supply chain management to lower trade-off effect between customization benefit and scale economy. This research first conducted field survey on the supply chain of TFT LCD industry, and analyzes the manufacturing process of glass substrate, which is a key material of TFT LCD. The position of the glass substrate companies is in the upstream of the TFT LCD industry supply chain, and the bullwhip effect of the glass substrate companies is very obvious. This research further selected a glass substrate company and modeled the production planning problem with various postponement scenarios and constraints that will maximize the expected net profit under uncertain market demands. We formulated the single-period and multiple-periods production planning problem to mathematical programming models, with respect to build-to-order production, postponement production, and forecasting and postponement combined production scenarios. We used the modeling tool: Evolver with underlining genetic algorithm to solve the problem and analyzed the modeling results. The single-period model solution showed that: (1) If the market demand is less than the production capacity, the expected net profit of build-to-order production strategy is the highest. (2) If the market demand exceeds the production capacity, the expected net profit of postponement production strategy is the highest. The multipleperiods model solution found that the expected net profit of postponement production strategy is the highest, but the expected net profit of the forecasting and postponement combined production strategy is the lowest. The research results provide a solid modeling experience on the glass substrate companies’ production planning problem. Furthermore, TFT LCD industry can gain a scientific view on the production characteristics of the upstream TFT LCD supply chain.