The importance of information sharing in a supply chain for the supplier‘s performance

Bachelor thesis:

Organization studies, 2nd semester, academic year 2011-2012

Thesis Circle:

Time will tell…. A processes perspective on inter-organizational collaboration

Name:

PC Jansen

ANR:

770926

E-mail:

P.C.Jansen@uvt.nl

The importance of information sharing in a supply chain for the supplier‘s performance
Abstract
This literature review investigates the effect of information sharing from a buyer to a supplier in a supply chain on the performance of that supplier, with taking in mind that the supplier has to combat the bullwhip effect. With the existence of the bullwhip effect, a supplier cannot make right forecasts and therefore has difficulties in planning its production and/or inventory control. This research shows that information sharing is the key solution to reduce or avoid the bullwhip effect and, by that, it positively influences the performance of the supplier in the chain. Keywords: Bullwhip, supply chain, information sharing, supplier performance, inventory control, single-echelon, multi-echelon

Thesis Circle: Time will tell…. A processes perspective on inter-organizational collaboration

Supervisor:

Remco Mannak

Supervisor 2: Annemieke Stoppelenburg

Name:

PC Jansen

ANR:

770926

E-mail:

P.C.Jansen@uvt.nl
2

Table of contents
Table of contents

3

1. Introduction

4

2. Theoretical Framework

7

2.1 Bullwhip effect

7

2.2 Information sharing

7

2.3 Performance of a supplier

9

3. Methodology

11

3.1 Operationalization

11

3.2 Data collection

11

3.3 Data analysis

12

3.2 Quality Indicators

12

4. Results

13

4.1 Information sharing is the key solution

13

4.1.1 Single-echelon supply chains

13

4.1.2 Multi-echelon supply