Responsiveness and Efficiency of Pull-Based and Push-Based Planning Systems in the High-Tech Electronics Industry

Planning systems for supply chain management can be designed in different ways in order to achieve the multiple objectives of supply chain management. Two of these objectives are responsiveness and efficiency of the system. In this paper, a System Dynamics simulation model is used to assess the performance of planning approaches for supply chains in the high-tech electronics industry on the dimensions of responsiveness and efficiency. Supply chains in this industry are subject to a number of challenges that complicate the achievement of these two objectives. The findings suggest that pull-based planning approaches can be used to achieve high efficiency and responsiveness, at the expense of higher fluctuations in capacity utilization upstream in the supply chain.