Throughput/inventory dollar-days: TOC-based measures for supply chain collaboration

As the semiconductor industry moves away from vertical integration, performance measures play an increasingly important role to ensure effective collaboration. This paper demonstrates that the theory of constraints (TOC)-based measures, Throughput and Inventory Dollar-Days (T/IDD), induce autonomous supply chain (SC) links to function as a synergistic whole and thereby, improve the performance of the whole SC network significantly. We model an SC network of a well-known TOC case study using discrete event simulation and discuss managerial implications of these measures via a set of scenarios. The scenarios explain how these measures – without sharing sensitive financial data – allow members of an SC network to monitor both the effectiveness (TDD) and efficiency (IDD) of SC members and lead them to create win-win solutions following well-known TOC-based planning and control concepts. We conclude this paper by discussing some limitations of the proposed research and provide directions for future theoretical research.