Output feedback control of dynamic supply chains via interval-like demand prediction schemes

Abstract

This paper is concerned with output feedback control to reduce the bullwhip effect of a dynamic supply chain system based on an interval-like demand prediction scheme. By introducing an interval-like time-varying delayed state signal to predict the order variations of downstream sites and taking into account the parametric perturbations, the dynamic supply chain is modeled as an uncertain linear discrete-time system with interval-like time-delay. Then, output feedback control scheme is proposed to improve the performance of the supply chain system. A sufficient condition to the existence of the output feedback controller is derived. It is found from simulation results that the designed output feedback controller can effectively stabilize the supply chain system with interval-like time-delay and parametric perturbations. Moreover, if the introduced interval-like time-delays are chosen properly, the bullwhip effect of the system can be reduced significantly.