Study the demand information sharing in supply chain with process modeling and simulation

The impacts of information sharing between supply chain partners had been studied for many years due to its importance in supply chain management. Although there is no doubt that information should be shared between partners, to what extent should individual enterprises share their information is still an open topic. In literature, usually analytic methods are used to understand the behavior of the chain and the effects of information sharing. The analytic method has solid mathematical base, however it is not easy for industrial users to understand. In this paper, a Process-information Model is built to describe the information sharing process. A simulation based analysis framework is then proposed to consider three aspects such as market environments, information sharing levels (frequent, aggregate, and no demand information sharing) and companies' production process. Finally, a case study is given to show how the proposed method works.