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Top1. Introduction
Rapid Response (RR) Logistics and supply chain systems have gained a lot of prominence in the last few years. The long lead time and randomly changing market situations along with the advanced technological developments led to growth of the Rapid Response systems as an inventory management strategy to tackle the upcoming challenges in the area of the supply chain (Cheng and Choi, 2010). Initially, it was implemented in 2000s as a reaction towards globalization by American Apparel Suppliers. However, nowadays it is in great demand in all kind of industries, be it any industry like automobiles, manufacturing, fashion apparels - all are in the race to use the rapid response logistics as a tool to improve the productivity and efficiency of their supply chains as well as face the upcoming market challenges. In a basic RR supply chain, a retailer shares real time POS data with its suppliers who use this information to improve their demand forecasting, production and scheduling. This collaborative relationship between supplier and retailer reduces the lead time and improves the efficiency and productivity of the overall supply chain (Simchi-Levi et al., 2008).
The proper implementation of the RR supply chain can improve the overall efficiency of the company's supply chain by reducing the bullwhip effect (the wrong prediction of demands) and lead time, better matching of supply and demand, improved inventory management, and enhanced customer service by clearing stock-outs. The RR supply chains are even more effective in those cases where the product demand is volatile, product life is short while the replenishment time is long, for example in case of fashion apparels, consumer electronics, and baby toys. But whether the RR supply chain really gives the desired results and provides advantages has always been a debatable issue because of the high cost of investment and the potential drop in stock keeping units (Iyer and Bergen, 1997; Choi and Chow, 2008).
To increase and improve productivity and performance of the logistics and supply chain, the big organizations have collaborated and formed strategic partnerships. Such collaborations have lead to the development and implementation of some of the best and effective supply chain techniques and models like Collaborative planning, demand forecasting, and replenishment(CPFR), and VMI (vendor management inventory), Supply chain systems having progressively deeper collaborations between the buyer agents and seller agents. The success of RR supply chain depends primarily on – the relationship between upstream and downstream agents, amount of information being shared between the various stakeholders, suitable demand and supply forecasting methods, the incentive alignment measures, and level of technological dependence (like RFID, SCM systems) being used for the effective running of the supply chain
The information sharing being the most critical aspect of an effective supply chain, this research study focuses on three major aspects of Information Management: The supply –side Information Management, demand-side information management, and information management technologies. This research reviews the available literature in all three aspects and brings forth the state of knowledge in each aspect as well as identifies some of the challenges in these respective areas. It further suggests the key areas for future research highlighting the gap in these areas. This study would be helpful to the authors and practitioners to innovatively redesign the framework for proper implementation of rapid response supply chain in big and small organizations for effective supply chain, effective demand forecasting system, for implementing new technological and innovative methods and supporting models.