Abstract for: The Effect of Semi-Rational Supply Chain Members on the Decision Parameters Used in Managing the Stock of an Echelon

A supply-chain is a series of connected stock management structures. Therefore, the structure of a supply-chain consists of many cascading inventory management problems. It is shown that the optimal inventory control parameter values suggested by the literature are also valid for a supply-chain. The motivation for this study is to investigate the optimality of the literature suggested optimal values of the decision parameters in the presence of semi-rationally managed supply-chain echelons. We use a soft coded version of The Beer Game as an experimental platform to carry out the study. According to the results of the simulation experiments, it is not rational to continue to use the optimal parameters when other echelons’ inventories are managed sub-optimally.