The Impact of Information Sharing on the Performance of Different-Echelon Supply Chain

This paper quantifies and compares the impact of information sharing (IS) on the performance of different-echelon (namely two-echelon, three-echelon and four-echelon) supply chain with a simulation approach. The performance indexes include Fulfill Rate (FR), Backorder Cost (BC), Inventory Cost (IC) and Profit (PF). The results show that IS has a significantly negative impact on supply chain performance indexes FR and BC, and that with the increase of the echelon of supply chain, the negative effect becomes more and more serious. However, the value of IS in decreasing total IC and increasing PF is also great.