Exploring the Impacts of Supply Information Sharing: Findings from a Supply Chain Simulation Model

Fierce business competition forces enterprises to pay more attention to the coordination with their suppliers and customers. Information sharing is a prerequisite for coordinated supply chain operations. A wide range of previous literature made insightful explorations into demand-side information sharing in supply chain, such as demand, forecasting, inventory, and order information sharing. However, research efforts have rarely been made into supply-side information sharing. In this research, a simulation model with mixed-integer programming was built to simulate ordering, production planning, and supplying activities with and without supply information sharing in a three- level capacitated supply chain. It indicates that supply information sharing (SIS) can significantly reduce total cost and enhance service level of the whole supply chain and its members, and lessen order variance of downstream members in the supply chain. In addition, the impacts of SIS on the supply chain performance are heavily influenced by demand patterns, capacity tightness, forecast accuracy, product substitution, and raw materials availability.