Using Demand Knowledge To Reduce Costs In A Service Delivery System: An Application of Discrete Event Simulation to a Service Delivery Problem

摘要

Supply Chain Management (SCM) has used tools, such as vendor-managed inventory (VMI), along with changes in flows of information permitted by technology, to manage inter-business relationships and create competitive advantages. This study used simulation to examine the effects of implementing a low technology approach, customer demand knowledge, along with the concept of vendor-managed inventory in a unique supply chain, that of the agricultural service firm. Six Nebraska cooperatives were interviewed, representing several thousand customers, and fuel delivery data was collected. Experimental models, incorporating both knowledge of customer demand patterns and vendor-managed inventory concepts, were created and statistically compared to the conventional model. These models performed significantly better than the model representing existing methods. The study concluded that using knowledge of supply chain customer demand improved the performance of the chain.