Knowledge Management: High-Quality Production Decisions in Partial Volume Flexibility to Create Value for Customers
研究了在需求不确定和竞争压力下，企业如何通过部分产能灵活性做出高质量生产决策来创造客户价值，发现灵活性程度的小幅变化能显著扩大可调生产范围，且高灵活性企业在需求极高或极低时获利更多。
Uncertainty in the demand of individual customers increases demand volatility in the entire market. In this context, partial volume flexibility can help hedge against demand uncertainty and competition pressure, and subsequently help create value by means of high-quality production decisions and market responsiveness, within the assumption of transformation and applied knowledge incorporated into the production stages. The article aims to investigate this phenomenon. To achieve this, as part of the methodology, a unified measure, the flexibility degree, is taken to represent the level of partial volume flexibility. We find that under demand uncertainty, a firm goes through a process with four stages—capacity decision, stable production, flexible production, and pricing. In a monopoly model, we find that a slight change in the flexibility degree could significantly increase a firm's adjustable production range to respond to demand changes. Furthermore, we develop a general asymmetric duopoly model. We characterize the equilibrium and find that a firm with a higher flexibility degree is more sensitive to demand changes. Accordingly, in response to specific demand, a higher flexibility firm obtains more profit only when the demand is sufficiently high or low, otherwise, the lower flexibility firm wins. Finally, we observe that a firm's capacity increases in its flexibility degree and decreases in its rival's flexibility degree; this is because the firm balances the market share and product profitability.