Information sharing in a collectors-led closed-loop supply chain

Abstract

This paper considers a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) in which two collectors provide used products to a manufacturer for remanufacturing. The collectors act as the channel leader, while the manufacturer is the follower and possesses private demand forecast information. We aim to investigate the manufacturer’s information sharing strategy and the effect of different information sharing strategies on the participants in the CLSC. We find that the manufacturer has an incentive to share its demand forecast information with the collectors. When the collectors’ investment cost-efficiency is high, the manufacturer prefers to share its information with only one collector. Under this scenario, the collector obtains the highest expected profit in all the information sharing cases. In addition, when the investment cost-efficiency is low, the manufacturer is willing to share its information with both collectors.