Product architecture and supply chain design: a systematic review and research agenda

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the extant literature on the relationship between product architectures and supply chain design to identify gaps in the literature and identify future research opportunities.

This paper examines the peer-reviewed literature on product architectures and supply chain written in English. The search strategy is based on selected databases and keywords. In total, 56 articles from 1995 to 2013 were identified.

Three key dimensions are identified for the categorization of the literature: the type of product architecture, the type of supply chain and the research methodology. Furthermore, we identify themes related to outsourcing, supplier selection, supplier relationships, distance from focal firm and alignment.

The present search strategy may have missed some references that are related to the area. However, as a counter-measure, we used back-tracking and forward-tracking to identify additional relevant papers. A research agenda is proposed for further research on the interaction of product architectures and supply chain design.

This paper is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first broad review that investigates the interrelationship between product architectures and supply chain design.