The Study On The Cause Of The Bullwhip In Food Supply Chain

Bullwhip Effect is a phenomenon of demand information enlargement on the supply chain. When the information flow transmits from customer to supplier, it is distorted, the more the information flow approaches supplies, the more it is distorted. In the nowadays, Bullwhip Effect has become one of the most important aspect about the supply chain research. The solution of Bullwhip Effect phenomenon, which will improve the performance of the whole supply chain, is a determining factor for the supply chain to acquire competitive advantage. It will be meaningful for supply chain management to study Bullwhip Effect and to reduce its influence.Although a great number of scholars from different countries have started Bullwhip Effect research, but the majority of them aim at the industry product research, which will have some limitation. Because in the different industry, the supply chain structure and the product characteristic it have are different too, thus the reason and the influence the Bullwhip Effect made are different. The food supply chain Bullwhip Effect is at the preliminary stage now. Professor Zhihua Wu (2,007) pointed out that grain price fluctuation in the year 2003 and 2006 indicates the Bullwhip Effect in grain supply chain is different from normal product. It's more obvious. However, he didn't make a further study about it.On base of the literature review about the supply chain Bullwhip Effect and the food supply chain, the article analyzed the food supply chain characteristics, and analyzed food supply chain Bullwhip Effect characteristic and its affect quantitatively. This article integrated the food supply chain characteristic and the supply chain Bullwhip Effect theory, proposed the factors which cause and affect the food supply chain Bullwhip Effect. Then the article analyzed a typical case of food supply chain Bullwhip Effect and proposed some countermeasures to weaken it.The research of the article is based on works of many scholars on supply chain Bullwhip Effect, and the author expects that it will make some contributions to the study about the Bullwhip Effect. But as a result of author's academic level and the time limitation, the article still has some deficiencies and objections, and the author hopes it will be researched by the following scholars.