The effect of product variety on supply-chain performance

We present a stylized model for analyzing the e®ect of product variety on supply-chain performance for a supply chain with a single manufacturer and multiple retailers. The manufacturer produces multiple products on a shared resource with limited capacity and the e®ect of changeovers on supply-chain cost is due primarily to setup time rather than setup cost. We show that the expected replenishment lead time and the retailers' costs are concave increasing in product variety and that the increase is asymptotically linear. Thus, if setup times are signi ̄cant, the e®ect of product variety on cost is substantially greater than that suggested by the risk-pooling literature for perfectly °exible manufacturing processes, where the cost increases proportionally to the square root of product variety. We demonstrate that disregarding the e®ect of product variety on lead time can lead to poor decisions and can lead companies to o®er product variety that is greater than optimal. The results of our analysis enable decision-makers to quantify the e®ect of product variety on supply-chain performance and thus to determine the optimal product variety to o®er. The results can also be used to evaluate how changes in the manufacturing process, the supply-chain structure, and the customer demand rate can improve the performance of supply chains with high product variety.