The effect of commonality on safety stock in a simple inventory model
Management Science
Component commonality with service level requirements
Management Science
On the Order Fill Rate in a Multi-Item, Base-Stock Inventory System
Operations Research
Optimal Commonality in Component Design
Operations Research
Inventory-Service Optimization in Configure-to-Order Systems
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Appropriateness and Impact of Platform-Based Product Development
Management Science
Product Development Decisions: A Review of the Literature
Management Science
A Note on Assemble-to-Order Systems with Batch Ordering
Management Science
Inventory Decisions in Dell's Supply Chain
Interfaces
Designing And Managing The Supply Chain
Designing And Managing The Supply Chain
Optimal Control of a High-Volume Assemble-to-Order System
Mathematics of Operations Research
No-Holdback Allocation Rules for Continuous-Time Assemble-to-Order Systems
Operations Research
The Role of Component Commonality in Product Assortment Decisions
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
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Component commonality has been widely recognized as a key factor in achieving product variety at low cost. Yet the theory on the value of component commonality is rather limited in the inventory literature. The existing results were built primarily on single-period models or periodic-review models with zero lead times. In this paper, we consider a continuous-review system with positive lead times. We find that although component commonality is in general beneficial, its value depends strongly on component costs, lead times, and dynamic allocation rules. Under certain conditions, several previous findings based on static models do not hold. In particular, component commonality does not always generate inventory benefits under certain commonly used allocation rules. We provide insight on when component commonality generates inventory benefits and when it may not. We further establish some asymptotic properties that connect component lead times and costs to the impact of component commonality. Through numerical studies, we demonstrate the value of commonality and its sensitivity to various system parameters in between the asymptotic limits. In addition, we show how to evaluate the system under a new allocation rule, a modified version of the standard first-in-first-out rule.