A Review on Supply Chain Coordination: Coordination Mechanisms, Managing Uncertainty and Research Directions

The Supply Chain (SC) members are dependent on each other for resources and information, and this dependency has been increasing in recent times due to outsourcing, globalization and rapid innovations in information technologies. This increase in dependency brings some extent of risk and uncertainty too along with benefits. To meet these challenges, SC members must work towards a unified system and coordinate with each other. There is a need to identify the coordination mechanisms which helps in addressing the uncertainty in supply chain and achieving supply chain coordination. A systematic literature review is presented in this paper to throw light on the importance of SC coordination. The objectives of this paper are to: Report and review various perspectives on SC coordination issues, understand and appreciate various mechanisms available for coordination and managing SC uncertainty and identify the gaps existing in the literature. Perspectives on various surrogate measures of supply chain coordination have been discussed followed by the scope for further research.