1849. Cash Flow Dynamics in Supply Chains: Addressing Cash-Out Risks through Trade Credit and Reserve Cash Strategies
Invited abstract in session TA-42: Sustainable supply chains II, stream Circular & Sustainable Supply Chains.
Tuesday, 8:30-10:00Room: Newlyn GR.02
Authors (first author is the speaker)
| 1. | Sanket Mishra
|
| Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay | |
| 2. | Jayendran Venkateswaran
|
| Indian Institute of Technology Bombay |
Abstract
In supply chains (SCs), coordinating inventory, information, and financial flows is vital for SC sustainability. While inventory flows have been notably investigated in the context of the bullwhip effect (BWE), the dynamics of financial flows have not been extensively studied. Analogous to the BWE, a phenomenon is observed in cash flows (CF) called the cash flow bullwhip (CFB). CFB causes high variability in CF, which results in payment default risks, bankruptcy, and, ultimately, the shutdown of firms.
Firms are assumed to utilise the cash generated from selling inventory to fund inventory ordering. However, downstream entities (buyers) may face situations where cash on hand (COH) is insufficient to order the desired inventory. We refer to such situations as cash-out. In such cases, the buyer may utilise two primary options: (i) bank financing for inventory orders and (ii) trade credit (TC), where the supplier allows delayed payment from the buyer. Under TC, suppliers face challenges in determining suitable interest rates (r), upper limits (u), and permissible payment delays (d). To address this, we model a bilateral SC consisting of a supplier and a buyer using a system dynamics approach, incorporating inventory and CFs to analyse inventory orders under COH and TC feedback. Scenario analysis is conducted using different values of r, u, d, and COH to avoid stockout and cash-out cases. Finally, the study presents a novel solution of utilising reserve cash to address cash-out.
Keywords
- Supply Chain Management
- System Dynamics and Theory
- Simulation
Status: accepted
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