Supply chain management-conception of a collaborative planning approach in case of short-term requirements alteration

The optimisation of the entire supply chain becomes ever more important due to increasing competition and a stronger customer orientation. In this context, new future solutions are expected by production planning and control systems that enable a fast and flexible planning and control on an inter-company collaborative basis. For this purpose, a paradigm change regarding the cooperation with preceding and following supply chain partners will be necessary. One-sided local optimisation at the expense of other supply chain partners will be replaced by inter-company collaboration in the planning and execution sector. For the sector of short-term requirements alteration a conception of inter-company planning processes based on collaboration and win-win-situations for all partners is presented in this paper. The basic of the model is formed by an in-company optimisation tool. It enables companies to gain necessary flexibility and data transparency to react to short-term requirements alterations. The optimisation process results in an in-company profit-maximising action, which enables the company to get in touch with customers and suppliers in the next phase of the inter-company coordination processes. Both, the in-company optimisation as well as the inter-company coordination model are designed in such a way that the alternatives of action converge to an optimum in the entire supply chain