Investigating the impact of information sharing in a twolevel supply chain using business process modeling and simulations: A case study

Abstract

This paper reports on an oil/retail petrol supply chain which was undergoing a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) exercise. The paper models and analyses the effect of information sharing on the performance parameters (inventory costs and bullwhip effect) of an actual Serbian oil industry supply chain. The main idea is to show through business process modelling how the BPR of existing processes needs to follow the introduction of the EDI system into organisations to improve information sharing between the supply chain echelons. Also, a simulation is employed to show how different levels of information sharing impact on inventory costs and the bullwhip effect. The model itself was has developed for a twolevel supply chain structure, and it and its associated simulations highlight the significant benefits that are achievable through the use of improved information sharing and business process re-engineering on the observed supply chain performance parameters. © ECMS.