The impact of demand parameter uncertainty on the bullwhip effect

Pastore, E. and Alfieri, A. and Zotteri, G. and Boylan, J.E. (2020) The impact of demand parameter uncertainty on the bullwhip effect. European Journal of Operational Research, 283 (1). pp. 94-107. ISSN 0377-2217

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Abstract

The bullwhip effect is a very important issue for supply chains, impacting on costs and effectiveness. Academic researchers have studied this phenomenon and modelled it analytically, showing that it affects many real world industries. The analytical models generally assume that the final demand process and its parameters are known. This paper studies a two-echelon single-product supply chain with final demand distributed according to a known AR(1) process but with unknown parameters. The results show that the bullwhip effect is affected by unknown parameters and is influenced by the frequency with which parameter estimates are updated. For unknown parameters, the strength of the bullwhip effect is also influenced by the number of demand observations available to estimate the parameters. Furthermore, a negative autoregressive parameter does not always imply an anti-bullwhip effect when the parameters are unknown. An analytical approximation is proposed to mitigate the poor accuracy of existing models when the parameters of an AR(1) process are unknown, forecasts are updated but parameter estimates remain unchanged.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
European Journal of Operational Research
Additional Information:
This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in European Journal of Operational Research. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in European Journal of Operational Research, 283, 1, 2020 DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2019.10.031
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1800/1802
Subjects:
?? INVENTORYSUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENTBULLWHIP EFFECTDEMAND VARIABILITYMODELLING AND SIMULATIONMANAGEMENT SCIENCE AND OPERATIONS RESEARCHINFORMATION SYSTEMS AND MANAGEMENT ??
ID Code:
139445
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
07 Jan 2020 15:55
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
18 Sep 2023 01:42