A study on push-pull mode of supply chain based on system dynamics

The system dynamics models of six mixed modes of push-pull are developed in four-echelon supply chain. Nine types of customer demand modes and fifty-four simulation scenarios are proposed. Manufacturing process, production cycle and shortage cost are considered into modeling and simulation in order to loosen some constraints in literatures. Then more detailed push-pull control logic and calculation of push-pull quantity are given. Many data such as each echelon´s inventory response, total inventory response and total cost response are achieved through simulations. The comparison and analysis show that push-push-push-push mode outperforms other five modes under customer demand with longer delivery time, and push-push-boundary-pull and push- boundary-pull-pull mode outperforms other four under customer demand with lesser delivery time. The performance improvement is not accomplished in pull-pull-pull-pull mode.