Influences of the Forrester Effect and the Bullwhip Effect on Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management is a complex process. There are several issues that can lead to the bullwhip effect and those issues can be exacerbated by delays in transmitting information, and a lack of coordination up and down the supply chain. Some causes of the bullwhip effect include:

In today’s competitive business world, the best companies have discovered a powerful new source which encompasses on all the integrated activities that bring the product to the market and create satisfied customers and is called “Supply-Chain Management”.

Supply management can be studied as both an instant field of practice and forming academic domain (Storey, Emberson, Godsell, & Harrison, 2006). It was eventually about influencing behavior in particular directions and in particular ways. The fundamental logics, drivers, enablers and barriers asset and exact close attention in supply management. Manufacturers, retailers, suppliers, and wholesalers are the members in supply chain. Supply chain management (SCM) is normally applying in integrated wholesaling and retail businesses (Wisner & Tan, 2000). SCM is comprehensiveness with logistics and physical distribution functions with reducing lead time of delivery. It is a comprehensive philosophy intent on management’s purpose to sustain or establish competitiveness in a quickly growing environment, through more able distribution, and purchasing activities (Cooper & Ellram, 1993; Giunipero &

Success for many organizations depends on the firm’s ability to balance product and process changes while exceeding customer expectations for improved cost delivery and quality. In lieu of these issues firms have started to implement principles of supply chain management. Supply chain management mainly involves managing the flow of incoming materials, manufacturing operations, and downstream distribution has to be in alignment that is responsive to change in customer demands eliminating a surplus of inventory.

The supply chain management is considered as a management concept from past two decades as the customers are concerned about timely and safe delivery. The competitiveness has been increasing among the companies to deliver the products as quickly as possible to the customers all around the world. This has made the supply chain management as a vital tool for the management. This is also measured as a competitive parameter for the companies.

Reorders are placed at the time of review (T), and the safety stock that must be reordered is:

List and explain all aspects of supply chain management. pg 416; week5 lecture, pg 4;

Effective supply chain management can provide an important competitive advantage for a business marketer, resulting in improved communication and involvement among members of the chain, increased motivation, and decreased costs. Tracking the movement of and demand for components used to manufacture a product across a variety of potential and actual suppliers, provides insight and the ability to respond instantly to shortages, surpluses, and changes in market conditions. It seeks to optimize production, decrease manufacturing time, minimize inventory, streamline order fulfillment, and reduce cost.

Many companies produce products from parts of raw materials that are purchased from suppliers, till these products are reach the markets and presented for the customers, then you have the supply chain starting from the purchase of raw material from different areas , through the manufacturing steps and stages till is being sold by the consumer. Some of supply chains are well defined and easy to determined, while there are other supply chains complex to analyze. However, supply chains vary with the size of the facility such as; complexities, performance, abilities, flexibility, quality, speed, dependability and cost of preparing goods for manufacturing and the chain length distribution. So the supply chain is a network of wholesalers, retailers, distributors, workers in the transport, storage facilities, suppliers, and manufacturers who participate in the production, delivery and sale of the product to the last consumer. A supply chain is a group of facilities that coordinate activities among it and to avoid the competitors. Moreover, to ensure the supply chain management is operating efficiently and generating the highest level of customer

Buying: is when retailers purchase a large quantity of the product while it’s available at a lower price–to-retailer (PTR). It is somehow problematic because retailers could either raise the price-to-customer (PTC) back to the regular price level after the intended period of the promotion and pocket the difference, or they could continue to sell the product at a lower PTC beyond the intended period and thereby condition customers to expect prices to remain lower.

The “bullwhip” effect was coined in by Proctor and Gamble (P&G) when the company experienced extensive demand amplification for their diaper products (Lee et .al, 1997). The bullwhip effect is a phenomenon in the supply chain whereby unpredictable elements introduced by human behaviour in the lower part of the chain becomes more pronounced the higher up the chain they move (Baugher, 2012). By synchronizing the supply chain the bullwhip effect can be eliminated. The bullwhip effect describes how inaccurate information, and a disconnection between production and real-time supply chain information result in loss of revenue bad customer service, high inventory levels and unrealised profits (Agarwal, 2009).

Through the numerous stages of a supply chain; key factors such as time and supply of order decisions, demand for the supply, lack of communication and disorganization can result in one of the most common problems in supply chain management.  This common problem is known as the bullwhip effect; also sometimes the whiplash effect. In this blog post we will explain this concept and outline some of the contributing factors to this issue.

The amplification in order variation may cause irrational decision making.(LPW 1997). The variation in demand between different stages in supply chain while moving upside. These variations called as ‘Bullwhip Effect’. They also called as ‘Whip-Saw’ or ‘Whip-lash’ It causes dramatic effect on firm resulting in excessive inventory, poor product forecasts, insufficient or excessive capacities, poor customer service due to unavailable products or long backlogs, uncertain production planning and high cost correction like high shipments.(LPW 1997). There is no bullwhip effect in ideal supply chain where as its assumed that supply is stationary, fix lead time, constant purchase cost overtime, no fixed cost of ordering, and forecasting is not based on past demand.( LPW 1997)

Supply chain management is a main process in all kinds of companies. That’s because an optimized supply chain results in lower costs and a faster production cycle.

MANAGING THE BULLWHIP EFFECT Joseph H. Wilck, IV Ph.D. Dual Degree, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, College of Engineering The bullwhip effect is the inherent increase in demand fluctuation up the supply chain (i.e., away from customer). Managing the bullwhip effect is minimizing the fluctuation and variation of the demand (i.e., orders from one stage of a supply chain to the next stage of the supply chain) throughout the supply chain. This paper will offer a literature review of this topic, note the key contributions, discuss current practices for managing the bullwhip effect, and explain why it is necessary for more research to be done in the area, specifically for continuous review policies. Orders/Time