Supply chain multi-stage response time decision-making model based on bi-level programming

Optimizing and shortening multi-stage response time, one of supply chain management goals, is an effective approach for a supply chain to respond rapidly to the demand in market and to reduce lead time. At first, the concept of supply chain multi-stage response time was illustrated. Supposing the core firm is a coordinating centre, this paper constructed a decision-making mechanism, and developed a bi-level programming approach to model the supply chain multi-stage response time. Finally, the model was tested and verified by analyzing a practical case. The results show that the model can coordinate the whole supply chain's benefit and local node firm's benefit and allocate production time and logistics time rationally, and is an effective decision-making tool for supply chain to optimize and shorten multi-stage response time.