Teaching the costs of uncoordinated supply chains

Supply-chain management has become a prominent area for teaching and research. Academics and managers realize that communication and coordination among members of a supply chain enhance its effectiveness, creating financial benefits to be shared by the members. We have collected numerical examples covering (1) location decisions, (2) centralized warehousing, (3) lot sizing with deterministic demand, (4) demand forecasting, (5) pricing, and (6) lot sizing with stochastic demand in a newsvendor environment. The examples are suitable for classroom use, and they illuminate the rewards supply-chain members can obtain by eliminating naturally occurring supply-chain inefficiencies and the costs of not doing so.