Agent based simulation approach to assess supply chain complexity and its impact on performance

In today’s global business environment, the intense competition, the changing and uncertain conditions, and the increasing customer’s requirements are challenges for the companies’ operational efficiency and profitability. In this context, companies highlight the importance of supply chain design and its holistic understanding in order to achieve and sustain competitive strengths. This book analyses supply chains as complex systems, whose performance is characterized by their structural configuration and emergent behaviour. The author analyses the supply chain structure and behaviour within the scope of complexity science. He focuses on supply chain complexity by means of a literature review and an empirical research, which give insights into the impact of complexity on supply chain performance. Moreover, within this book the supply chain is modelled as a complex system by considering the non-linear relationships of its geo-positioned elements. Finally, an agent based model is developed for the generic supply chain simulation, which allows assessing the impact of complexity on supply chain performance and characterizing the behaviour of supply chain designs. The materials presented in this book contribute to the understanding and management of supply chain complexity. This work complements existing complexity frameworks with a holistic analysis of complexity’s impact on the performance of supply chain participants and their network. The findings of this work are relevant for researchers interested in characterizing supply chain phenomena by enabling them to model supply chain structures and to simulate their emergent behaviour. Practitioners can benefit from the provided model and simulation platform by allowing them to dynamically assess the performance of their supply chain designs and strategy definitions. By these means, they improve their decision-making and business profitability. In all, this book contributes towards the development of artificial intelligence in supply chain management, its realistic simulation and dynamic performance optimization.