ON THE BULLWHIP AVOIDANCE PHASE: SUPPLY CHAIN COLLABORATION AND ORDER SMOOTHING

Salvatore Cannella (1) , Elena Ciancimino (1)

1 Faculty of Engineering

The paper provides an assessment of the impact of collaboration and smoothing replenishment rules on supply chain operational performance and customer service level. Three supply chain configurations, Traditional, Information Exchange and Synchronised, in which orders are generated by smoothing (S, R), are studied for variations of proportional controllers. A supply chain stress test is performed through a sudden and intense change in demand. The main conclusions of this paper are: (i) Supply Chain Collaboration impacts more than order smoothing on overall supply chain performance. Order smoothing mitigates bullwhip effect but it may have negative impact on customer service. Supply Chain Collaboration solves bullwhip, provides inventory stability, limits lumpy orders and enhances customer service level. (ii) The negative effect on customer service level of order smoothing is almost eliminated in synchronised supply chain.

Mots clés: Physical Sciences

Salvatore Cannella, Elena Ciancimino. ON THE BULLWHIP AVOIDANCE PHASE: SUPPLY CHAIN COLLABORATION AND ORDER SMOOTHING. International Journal of Production Research, 2009, pp.1. ⟨10.1080/00207540903252308⟩. ⟨hal-00546227⟩