Decision mechanism for chain to chain collaboration in cluster supply chains

In order to improve the performance of chain to chain horizontal collaboration in cluster supply chains, this paper addresses remain/leave (R/L) decision mechanism for cluster supply chains when an enterprise or a set of enterprises needs to evaluate the anticipated reward of enterprise collaboration. In this research, a set of enterprises forms a collaborative network (CN) for the purpose of sharing their demands and capacities by predefined protocols. An enterprise in the CN determines remain decision with the CN when the collaborative condition of the enterprise has been altered. On the other hands, the CN determines a leave decision with a member enterprise of the CN when its performance impairs entire enterprise collaboration. Experimental results indicate that a single enterprise always prefers to remain in the CN in terms of demand fulfillment rate and total profit.