Information sharing in a supply chain with dynamic consumer demand pattern

Abstract

Previous research suggested that applying different information sharing strategy (ISS) to the supply chain under different demand pattern may improve the supply chain performance [14]. But the assumption was made in the scenario that only one kind of ISS was used throughout the entire supply chain when the end consumers' demand pattern does not change [14]. In this paper, we set out to explore what will happen if the end consumers' demand pattern changes and whether adjusting the ISS accordingly will improve the supply chain performance. Three different demand patterns and three different ISSs will be considered. Hypotheses are developed based on the analysis of the relationship among demand patterns, ISSs and supply chain performance. A simulation model of a two-tier supply chain based on the GPSS platform is built to explore different scenarios and to test the hypotheses. The simulation results show that adjusting ISS according to the changes of end consumers' demand pattern will benefit the supply chain performance. Implications for supply chain practitioners are drawn from the results.