2.2.2 Integral Planning Perspective at Entire Retail Supply Chain
The “Efficient Consumer Response” (ECR) concept is an example for integral planning. The initiative aims for a better coordination between strategic partners with the objective to improve satisfaction of consumer needs through efficient replenishment, store assortments, promotions and product introductions (ECR Europe 2003a). This is based on the awareness, that demand-side concepts retain a direct relation to logistical tasks (Kumar 2008). ECR objectives are to remove inefficiencies in information flow and data management along the SC and to realize gains for all partners, which would otherwise not be realized in an isolated, uncoordinated approach (Kotzab 1999). ECR aims towards a vertical cooperation by building trustful relations and sharing data, rather than towards the application of comprehensive analytical methods. The initiatives are “manual”-like qualitative approaches to support the planning. Alvarado and Kotzab (2001) analyze the lack of theoretical explanations of SCM-methods within the ECR. They hypothesize that thecomplexityinvolvedin SCM leads to difficultiesin testing “hybrid”relationships and concepts. A broader theoretical basis appears to be required, especially as “optimization” is an often-used word there. But typically “optimization” conveys there the idea of improvement and not to find the best solution out of a huge, sometimes not countable number of possible alternatives.
On the other side, integral planning fosters to generate total systems, which then cannot be solved optimally because of the complex interdependencies.Varying decision owners, time horizons, frequencies and degrees of aggregation or impor-tance, force a decomposition of decisions (Fleischmann and Meyr 2003). Optimal planning of an entire retail SC is neither possible in form of a monolithic system that plans all tasks simultaneously nor by performing the various planning steps simply successively. The fully integrated optimization could not be put into practice. Also, the poor successive planning would miss optimality. Hierarchical planning is a compromise between practicability, integrating interdependenciesand break down the overall planning into partial planning modules(Miller2001;Schneeweiss2003a; Fleischmann and Meyr 2003; Gebhardt and Kuhn 2008; Stadtler 2008; Gu¨ntherand Meyr 2009). It enables coordinating a solution and considering interdependencies. Thus, in the following a hierarchical planning concept is reviewed, which is mainly based on quantitative decision methods.