Decision Sciences Journal
Volume 29, Number 3
Summer 1998
Modeling Supply Chain Dynamics: A Multiagent Approach
Jayashankar M. Swaminathan
Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California,
Berkeley, CA 94720, email: msj@haas.berkeley.edu
Stephen F. Smith and Norman M. Sadeh
The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh,
PA 15213, email: sfs@ri.cmu.edu
and sadeh@ri.cmu.edu
Abstract: A global economy and increase in customer
expectations in terms of cost and services have put a premium
on effective supply chain reengineering. It is essential to perform
risk-benefit analysis of reengineering alternatives before making
a final decision. Simulation provides an effective pragmatic
approach to detailed analysis and evaluation of supply chain
design and management alternatives. However, the utility of this
methodology is hampered by the time and effort required to develop
models with sufficient fidelity to the actual supply chain of
interest. In this paper, we describe a supply chain modeling
framework designed to overcome this difficulty. Using our approach,
supply chain models are composed from software components that
represent types of supply chain agents (e.g., retailers, manufacturers,
transporters), their constituent control elements (e.g., inventory
policy), and their interaction protocols (e.g., message types).
The underlying library of supply chain modeling components has
been derived from analysis of several different supply chains.
It provides a reusable base of domain-specific primitives that
enables rapid development of customized decision support tools.
Subject Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Decision Support
System, Simulation, and Supply Chain Management. |