Collective customer collaboration impacts on supply-chain performance

Facilitated by a Collective Customer Collaboration (C3) system, the impact of customer knowledge and demand information on supply-chain performance is examined. The basic characteristics and theoretical benefits of C3 systems are presented and tested using a multi-agent supply-chain simulation. The simulation test results indicate that (1) supply chains employing C3 front-ends, without sharing information, show performance improvements over traditional supply chains; (2) supply chains employing C3 front-ends, while also sharing information, show performance improvements over those that did not share information; and (3) centralized supply chains employing C3 systems, while also sharing information, show performance improvements over their decentralized counter-parts.