Analysis and Verification of Bullwhip Effect Based on System Dynamics

Abstract

To study the bullwhip effect (BWE) in supply chain (SC), this paper built two system dynamics (SD) models strictly referring to the AR(1) (autoregressive process) model constructed by Frank Chen. Using Vensim simulation software, it analyzed the impact of the correlation coefficient of demand, lead time, smoothing time of demand and information to BWE, and then put forward some proposals on how to reduce BWE. By contrasting the simulation results of SD models with the AR(1) models', it verifies the validity of the AR(1) model of Frank Chen from a simulation perspective. It also shows SD model combined with AR(1) model can analyze BWE in SC reliably and powerfully.