Entropy theory based analysis of supply chain coordination efficiency

Supply chain coordination is a hot topic in related research field recently. The Supply Chain Coordinative Structure (SCCS) that exactly represents which company acts as the coordinator in the network, could fundamentally affect the coordination efficiency. The paper constructs structure entropy models for three typical SCCSs (manufacturer-coordinator, retailer-coordinator and third-party-coordinator), and analyzes the impact of parameters to the coordination efficiency. Finally, the concept of level of order degree (LOD) is raised to evaluate the balance of informational timeliness and informational quality in certain SCCS, and a numerical example is analyzed.