Information-shared postponement strategies in supply chain management

Abstract

In this study, we defined the situation in which both information sharing and postponement are available as information-shared postponement. Through simulation, we carried out a detailed analysis of the influence of information sharing strategies on postponement in a supply chain and illustrated clearly how these two strategies would affect the benefit of inter-organizational collaboration. Results showed that different information sharing strategies do not perform equally well on all performance measures in a supply chain while the benefits of information-shared postponement strategies are significantly influenced by the trended demand. However such benefits from information-shared postponement strategies are not equally contributed to all tiers in a supply chain. These findings would help organizations evaluate and improve their ability of utilizing proper information to fit with their operations and to integrate partners into a tightly coupled supply chain.