At the heart of time-based competition is the capability to postpone customization and the timing of logistical fulfillment.The concept of postponement has long been discussed in business literature. However,practical examples involving postponement are directly related to advancements in information technology .Postponement strategies and practices serve to reduce the anticipatory risk of supply chain performance.As noted earlier,anticipatory arrangements require most inventory to be produced to final product state and deployed on the basis of forecasts or planned requirements.Working arrangements,which allow postponement of final manufacturing,or distribution of a product until receipt of a customer order,reduce the incidence of wrong manufacturing or incorrect inventory deployment.Two types of postponement are common in highly responsive supply chain operations manufacturing,or form postpostponement and geographic,or logistics postponement.