Collaborative Planning in Supply Chains

Independent companies in a supply chain each make their own planning decisions, yet their plans must still line up. This book examines collaborative planning, which seeks that alignment without taking decision-making power away from any partner. It begins with an introduction to the approach, places it within the wider field of supply chain management, and surveys related research.

The central part sets out, in sequence, a negotiation-based and practice-oriented method for medium-term master planning between a supplier and one customer. The author then widens this basic model to supply chains with several partners and to planning carried out on a rolling basis. Alongside this, the book outlines how collaborative planning would affect supply contracts and uses game theory to analyze what motivates partners to cooperate.