An Investigation on Centralized and Decentralized Supply Chain Scenarios at the Product Design Stage to Increase Performance

Design for supply chain has become an essential consideration while designing a new product. Previous studies pointed out that early supplier involvement can contribute to the success of the product development and enhance the competitive advantage of the enterprise. However, most of the studies coordinating supplier selection and supply chain configuration make these decisions during the detail design stage, which is the last phase of product design. This research aims to investigate the supply chain scenarios for their relevant performance at the conceptual design stage. The performance of different supply chain scenarios (i.e., centralized and decentralized), are compared and discussed. The results show that the decentralized supply chain scenario is advantageous for the time performance of the supply chain network, whereas the centralized supply chain scenario demonstrates superiority on the cost performance.