A continuous simulation approach for supply chains in the automotive industry

In the automotive industry supply chains, several factories collaborate to manufacture a product (car, engines, etc.). In order to fulfill customers' needs, they have to be designed and organized in the proper way. The dynamic analysis of their behavior through simulation provides important information to improve their performances. Most existing research works addressing the modeling and simulation of supply chains are generally based on a discrete event worldview. We are concerned here with medium or long term decision problems, which necessitate "macroscopic" models of the supply chain. At these levels, the representation of the individual flows of the numerous parts that circulates in the supply chain being quite difficult, given the objectives considered, we chose a continuous worldview. The models are based on Forrester's system dynamic paradigms. The proposed approach is actually applied to a large French company, in the automotive industry. The supply chain presented in this article is composed of five existing plants, located in two different production areas. The results show the concrete benefits that can be achieved. Several research directions are suggested. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.