Modelling the Collaborative Forecasting Decision-Making Process in Decentralised Supply Chains. Towards a Reference Model

3rd International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Industrial Management XIII Congreso de Ingeniería de Organización Barcelona-Terrassa, September 2nd-4th 2009

Modelling the collaborative forecasting decision-making process in decentralised supply chains. Towards a reference model

Jorge E. Hernández1, Raúl Poler1, Francisco C. Lario1, Josefa Mula1

CIGIP (Centro de Investigación Gestión e Ingeniería de Producción). Dpto. Organización de Empresas. Escuela Politécnica Superior de Alcoy. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Edificio Ferrándiz y Carbonell, 2, 03801 Alcoy (Alicante), Spain. jeh@cigip.upv.es, rpoler@cigip.upv.es, fclario@cigip.upv.es, fmula@cigip.upv.es.

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Keywords: Collaborative forecasting, supply chain management, decision-making process, GRAI methodology 1. Introduction

Decision system technologies have strongly supported modelling and have solved planning complexities in supply chains in a collaborative context. Moreover, the development of supply chains are increasingly oriented to shape relationships among the firms, companies or nodes involved, generally in manufacturing and logistic processes. In addition, these relationships tend to be more cooperative and collaborative, which is a determining factor to create value in supply chains (Mitra and Sanghal, 2008). Furthermore, in the forecasting process context, Holweg et al. (2003) consider the fact that information sharing not only helps to create more visible and predictable demand in the system, but also allows the easier implement and complete customer-specific control processes. In addition, Aviv (2001) considers a supply chain in which each member maintains its own forecasting process, and is also capable of incorporating forecast updates into the replenishment process. Indeed, the collaborative forecasting process applies supply chain management concepts to the forecasting process, and uses the information and technology available to force a shift from independent to...