Optimizing and shortening multi2stage response-time. As one of supply chain management goals , is an effective approach to supply chain to respond rapidly the demand in market and to reduce lead time. Firstly , the concept of supply chain multi2stage response time was illustrated. Supposed the core firm is a coordinating center , this paper constructed a decision2making mechanism , and developed a bi2level programming approach to model the supply chain multi2stage response-time. Then , the model was tested and verified by analyzing a practical case. The results shows that the model can coordinate the whole supply chain’s benefit , local node firm’s benefit , allocate production time and logistics time rationally , and is an effective decision2making aided tool for supply chain to opti2 mize and shorten multi2stage response time