Title: Holistic modelling, simulation and visualisation of demand and supply chains

Authors: Benoit Montreuil; Caroline Cloutier; Olivier Labarthe; Jonathan Loubier

Addresses: Canada Research Chair in Enterprise Engineering, CIRRELT Interuniversity Research Center on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation, Faculty of Administration Sciences, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada ' Canada Research Chair in Enterprise Engineering, CIRRELT Interuniversity Research Center on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation, Faculty of Administration Sciences, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada ' Canada Research Chair in Enterprise Engineering, CIRRELT Interuniversity Research Center on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation, Faculty of Administration Sciences, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada ' Canada Research Chair in Enterprise Engineering, CIRRELT Interuniversity Research Center on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation, Faculty of Administration Sciences, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada

Abstract: The evolution of the economic and technological contexts pressure businesses toward transforming their demand and supply chains to become more customer-centric, collaborative, innovation enabling, agile and personalised. Simulation models are needed to contrast actual vs. proposed chains, analyse the dynamic performance of these chains, and understand their overall behaviour in specific contexts. This paper proposes a holistic agent-oriented approach for modelling, simulation and visualisation of such demand and supply chains. The simulation platform for extended enterprises (SPEE) developed exploits multiple concurrent viewers that can both illustrate global multi-perspective insights into the supply chain as well as tunnel down to highly detailed information. This allows decision makers to embed themselves into the simulation and obtain the holistic visualisation needed to support their decisions.

Keywords: demand chain; supply chain design; agent-oriented simulation; agent-oriented modelling; agent-based systems; multi-agent systems; MAS; client modelling; holistic visualisation; supply chain management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPSCM.2015.068133

International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling, 2015 Vol.7 No.1, pp.53 - 70

Received: 01 Mar 2013
Accepted: 04 Oct 2013
Published online: 20 Mar 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article