Entropy as an assessment tool of supply chain information sharing

As the order fulfillment process needs to be managed in a seamless way, the level of information sharing among the partners of the supply chain needs to be increased. An entropy-based formulation is proposed as the basis of a methodology for comparing different information sharing approaches in a supply chain environment. A step-by-step comparison of two different information sharing approaches is presented to exemplify the use of the methodology. A computer simulation is used to validate the usefulness of the proposed methodology. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.