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Explain Bullwhip Effect
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  • The bullwhip effect is a distribution channel phenomenon in which forecasts yield supply chain inefficiencies.
  • It refers to increasing swings in inventory in response to shifts in customer demand as you move further up the supply chain.
  • The concept first appeared in Jay Forrester's Industrial Dynamics (1961) and thus it is also known as the Forrester effect.
  • The bullwhip effect was named for the way the amplitude of a whip increases down its length. The further from the originating signal, the greater the distortion of the wave pattern. In a similar manner, forecast accuracy decreases as move upstream along the supply chain.
  • Fluctuations in orders increase as they move up the supply chain from retailers to wholesalers to manufacturers to suppliers.
  • Distorts demand information within the supply chain, where different stages have very different estimates of what demand looks like
  • Results in a loss of supply chain coordination.
  • Exists, in part, due to the retailer’s need to estimate the mean and variance of demand.
  • The increase in variability is an increasing function of the lead time.
  • The more complicated the demand models and the forecasting techniques, the greater the increase.
  • Centralized demand information can reduce the bullwhip effect, but will not eliminate it.
  • For example, many consumer goods have fairly consistent consumption at retail. But this signal becomes more chaotic and unpredictable as you move away from consumer purchasing behaviour.
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