The impact of information sharing strategies in multi-level supply chain

Information sharing is a major strategy to counteract the bullwhip effect. Previous research suggested that applying different ISS (information sharing strategy) to the supply chain may improve the supply chain performance under a simplified two-level supply chain model. In this paper, we present a simulation study that investigates the effectiveness of information sharing under different information sharing strategy scenarios within a complex multi-level supply chain model. In our research, a computer model is developed to simulate the complex multi-level supply chain model. The simulation data and results analysis show both distributors and suppliers gain significantly from information sharing no matter under different information sharing strategy except retailers and different information sharing strategy has great influence on supply chain performance.