The Bullwhip effect is a phenomenon in which demand changes at the end of a supply chain, leading to inventory fluctuations. Generally, slight variations in demand at the customer or retailer level reverberate up the chain, causing more significant discrepancies.

This, in turn, causes too many or insufficient supplies to be purchased at each level of the chain. These products often end up as dead stock on backorder or need to have their prices cut to avoid a total loss.

Consider the following examples:

Let's say you are a food wholesaler who regularly sells $1,000$ cans of tuna to a customer each week. One of these days, this customer orders double the amount of tuna they normally do$.$

A retailer, at the beginning of the Easter holidays, gets a $25\%$ increase in orders of ice creams from neighbouring customers. The next day, the order increases to $40\%$ of the normal orders.

Task: Refer to the above examples and explain, with the numerical of your choice and graphs, the phenomenon of the $$Bullwhip Effect$$ with reference to the following questions:

$1.$ What are the primary reasons for the cause of the Bullwhip effect?

$2.$ How does the Bullwhip effect affect the various sectors in the supply chain: Transportation, Inventory, etc.?

$3.$ What are the remedies to control or avoid the Bullwhip effect in the supply chain?