Simulation Models

Development of simulation models for understanding issues of supply chain decision making has gained importance in recent years. Some of the studies are Malone [#!malo87!#], Connors et al.[#!connor!#], and Feigin et al.[#!feigin96!#]. Bhaskaran and Leung [#!bhaskar97!#] describe re-engineering of supply chains using queueing network models and simulation.

Simulation models can provide for comprehensive supply chain modeling considering the strategic, tactical, and operational elements. But these models can only evaluate the effectiveness of a predefined policy. Also the simulation systems take a long time to develop, prototype and implement. Most of the simulation models are built for specific cases. These are very difficult to utilize for similar efforts within the same organization itself. Since simulation models have limited reuse, the simulation tools should provide an environment where reusable software components are combined to construct simulation models for different problems. Feigin and his co-workers at IBM have looked into enterprise modeling and simulation in an object oriented environment [#!feigin96!#]. Similar work has been done by Mujtaba et al. [#!mujtaba94!#] and Chu [#!chu97!#]. But typically developing and implementing object models for a given supply chain takes a long time. A set of generic objects representing various entities of supply chain can greatly shorten this period. Swaminathan et al. [#!SWAMI97!#] have taken this approach.They have built a generic agent framework using which they can build simulation models for a variety of supply chain networks.