The Impact of the Exchange of Market and Stock Information on the Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chains

We study a supply chain whose acting objects apply local control policies. The determination of the optimal order quantity is done by discret Markov decision models. The existence of the bullwhip effect is verified analytically. While analyzing the reasons of the bullwhip effect, we focus on the lack of information exchange and the uncertainty in demand. We determine the potential for improvements within the supply chain by implementing an additional information system. The shared informations are used by the discret Markov decision models to calculate the modified order quantities on every level of the supply chain.