IMA Journal of Management Mathematics Advance Access originally published online on December 1, 2007
IMA Journal of Management Mathematics 2008 19(2):117-135; doi:10.1093/imaman/dpm035
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Investigation of rolling horizon flexibility contracts in a supply chain under highly variable stochastic demand

Enterprise Engineering Research Group, Department of Manufacturing and Operations Engineering, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
Email: patrick.walsh{at}ul.ie
Received on 19 January 2007. Accepted on 3 October 2007.
A discrete-event simulation model of a supply chain has been developed to evaluate operational performance of sharing uncertain information on upcoming demand between an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and a contract manufacturer under a formal rolling horizon flexibility (RHF) contract in a four-node supply chain. There are two types of RHF contracts evaluated, i.e. RHF contract with constant flexibility and decreasing flexibility bounds. The demand is externalized (i.e. the OEM receives the demand), stochastic and generated according to a gamma distribution. This paper reports on the analysis of RHF contracts operating with coefficients of variation of demand up to 2.00. Analysis of the interaction of RHF contracts with forecasting and the impact an RHF contract has on the transmission of the bullwhip effect are reported here.
Keywords: simulation; discrete event; performance analysis; coefficient of variation; bullwhip; RHF contract