Regikumar V
Dr. K.V. Krishnankutty
Abstract
The major problem in any Supply Chain Management (SCM) scenario is the tackling of realistic uncertainty of the demand.The management of inventories along the chain and the total supply chain performance is highly influenced by the stochastic nature of demand. Several inventory policies have been analyzed and compared by the supply chain researchers to achieve a proper tradeoff between high service levels (responsiveness) and low inventory costs (efficiency). Thephenomenonof demand variability increases as one move up the supply chain from the retailer to the manufacturer is called the bullwhip effect. The demand aggregation and forecasting techniques in the supply chain echelons contributes a major on the bullwhip effect and net stock amplifications in each echelon. This paper examines the effect of the commonly used demand aggregation methods and forecasting techniques on the efficiency and responsiveness of information sharing (seamless) supply chains .Here one supply chain echelon is consideredfor the simulation study and the efficiency is measured in terms of inventory cost and responsiveness interms ofthefill rate ofthe receiver.
Keywords- Fill Rate, Net Stock Amplification, Bullwhip Effect, Moving Average Forecast,Replenishment Rules.