SUPPLY CHAIN BUILDING BLOCKS - INTEGRATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION IN AN AGENT-BASED MODEL FOR SIMULATING SUPPLY CHAIN DESIGNS

This paper presents the integration of geographical information into an agent-based simulation model, named Supply Chain Building Blocks (SCBB), for enhancing its performance analysis of supply chain designs. Geographical information improves the modelling accuracy of the supply chain's static and dynamic elements for the spatial and temporal characterization. In the SCBB, static elements are the geographically located supply chain participants (modelled as generic agents) and the routes describing their interconnections. Dynamic supply chain elements are the transportation agents, who emulate the multi-modal material flows. Intances of transportation agent move material based on the lead times resulting from the transportation's mode attributes and the routes' description. Supply chain participants in SCBB incorporate geographical information to evaluate their behavioural policies for emulating business functions and for communicating with other agents. The use of geographical information enhances the SCBB modelling capabilities by supporting the holistic performance analysis of supply chain designs for the strategic decision-making (e.g. capacity allocation and location decisions), business functions configuration (e.g. management strategies for sourcing, inventory, production and distribution) and phenomena understanding (e.g. complexity management, risk management and green logistics).