Solving a Demand-Supply Mismatch by Enabling a Value Chain Orientation

Supply-Demand mismatch is a continuous challenge among suppliers creating poor customer service levels and often leading to higher costs to the entire supply chain, to meet the demands of the customer. This paper will highlight demand-supply mismatch issues between a steel supplier having supply issues with one of its premier automobile customers due to difficulties in forecasting the appropriate demand from the customer. The outcome of the original research was developing a framework for an integrated planning process that overlooks the entire demand planning and management of the customer, in addition to emphasizing the application of demand profiling that enabled to build a novel future state inventory model. In the context of the work published here, an enabler and inhibitor analysis was conducted, that studies the structure and processes within and between firms, to identify any business implications that may affect the demand-supply mismatch.