In this paper, we extend price wars to supply chain networks (SCNs), focusing on how price wars affect the performance of SCNs and how to contain a price war. We propose a computational model in which the price competition is modelled as a multistage evolutionary prisoner’s dilemma game between business-related neighbors in each stage of the SCN, and the temptation to defect of the prisoner’s dilemma game is modelled as a function of the quotation price, which couples the price competition and the dynamic of the SCN. It is found that the price defectors’ exposure rate is the key factor causing price war of the SCN, and only a large proportion of firms in a closely related industry join the price alliance, and the price war in the SCN can be contained effectively.
In supply chain operation practices, lead time uncertainty is a common management issue. Uncertain lead time can lead to increased inventory costs and unstable service levels, which will directly affect the overall operation performance of the supply chain. While considering environmental performance in supply chain, it is important to understand how an uncertain lead time will affect sustainable performance. In this paper, we constructed a supply chain model with stochastic lead time and explored the relationship between uncertain lead time and supply chain performance. We considered carbon cost, inventory cost, and service level as a supply chain performance. System dynamics methodology was employed to observe and explore the dynamic change trend of the overall performance in the complicated supply chain model. This was done under both different levels of lead time standard deviation and different order policies. The results demonstrate how stochastic lead times can significantly increase inventory costs and carbon costs. Therefore, we propose appropriate ordering policies which mitigate the negative impacts of stochastic lead times.
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