Information Sharing for improved Supply Chain Collaboration – Simulation Analysis

Collaboration among consumer good’s manufacturer and retailers is vital in order to elevate their performance. Such mutual cooperation’s, focusing beyond day to day business and transforming from a contract-based relationship to a value-based relationship is well received in the industries. Further coupling of information sharing with the collaboration is valued as an effective forward step. The advent of technologies naturally supports information sharing across the supply chain. Satisfying consumers demand is the main goal of any supply chain, so studying supply chain behaviour with demand as a shared information, makes it more beneficial. This thesis analyses demand information sharing in a two-stage supply chain. Three different collaboration scenarios (None, Partial and Full) are simulated using Discrete Event Simulation and their impact on supply chain costs analyzed. Arena software is used to simulate the inventory control scenarios. The test simulation results show that the total system costs decrease with the increase in the level of information sharing. There is 7% cost improvement when the information is partially shared and 43% improvement when the information is fully shared in comparison with the no information sharing scenario. The proposed work can assist decision makers in design and planning of information sharing scenarios between various supply chain partners to gain competitive advantage

A time-based control policy for a perishable inventory system with lost sales

Ankara : Department of Industrial Engineering and the Institute of Engineering and Science of Bilkent Univ., 1998.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 1998.Includes bibliographical references leaves 49-52In this study, we propose a new time-based poiicy for continuous review inventory systems where the products have fixed fife times and unmet denicinds are iost. We cierive the exact expressions of the key operating characteristics of the rnociei. Based on these performance measures, we optimize the reievant costs subject to a service ievei criterion, nameiy the average fraction of time out of stock. A numericai analysis is provided to Vcilidate and compare our model with conventional policies. We also investigate some special cases of the time-based policy which are applicable to the products with infinite life times.Tekin, EylemM.S