Supply-Chain Coordination Under Demand Uncertainty

Demand uncertainty is a common phenomenon in business activity, which lowers the efficiency of resource disposal and bring about negative effect on all the business activities of the supply chain members.In order to reduce the enormous loss of the supply chain members resulted from the demand uncertainty, finding out the causes of the demand uncertainty and the corresponding resolution measures are becoming the core topics in the theoretical areas and the business areas. Of cause, it is one of he two research purposes of this paper.Researching from the systematic structure, we can find the structural affecting factors of the demand uncertainty. That is, the longer leadtime and the linked information communication mechanism. The longer leadtime leads to the incompletion of the demanding information. The linked information communication mechanism leads to the asymmetry of the demand information.However, the coordination of the supply chain can reduce the negative effects of the demand uncertainty and add to the whole performance of the supply chain to some extent.There have been lots of coordination measures in business practice. We classify them into two coordination models, to which the two structural factors are corresponding. To the first model, it means we urge the supply chain members take better advantage of the demand information within the old leadtime through improving the operating mechanism, so we can reduce the extent of the information incompletion. To the second model, it means we turn to the information-sharing mechanism from the linked information communication mechanism, so we can reduce the asymmety of the information and the mistake of the forecasting error.The second researing purpose is to merge the general coordination model into the business practice. As far as the first coordination model is concerned, we formulate a inventory model composed of a retailer and a manufacturer in order to analyze how to design an effective way to reduce thenegative influence brought by the longer leadtime. So, we calculate andiicompare the expected profit of three operating models of supply chain. The result is, under most situation, the improved quick response model (IQR)has the best performance. Under other special situation, the traditional model and the quick response model are the best choices. Accordingly, we design several compensational measures and put forward some proposals for making up the deficiency of the IQR model,As far as the second coordination model is concerned, we formulate up an informational sharing model consisting of a retailer and a supplier. The result is that when the supplier has moderate to high capacity, and the retailer's value of (s,S) and the changes in demand are reduced to moderate values, the information link is expected to be most beneficial.Xia liping (International Trade) Directed by Menq vuhong...