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Authors

Botvin G.

Degree
PhD in Technique, Professor, Saint-Petersburg State University
E-mail
g.botvin@spbu.ru
Location
Saint-Petersburg
Articles

Multi-agent based simulation of supply chain dynamics

The concept of supply chain management is based on the idea that coordinating the activity of supply chain members will reduce costs and increase the satisfaction of end-customers. It assumes that supply chain members should not compete with each other, they should compete with other supply chains. The supply chain can be described as a complex system hence it’s become complicated to analyze how one or another action will effect on the supply chain. Simulation of supply chains is used for understanding and predicting systems behavior. One of the possible solutions to implement a simulation of such complex system as supply chain based on usage of multi-agent systems. Multi-agents due to distributed nature are well suited for modeling interaction of supply chain members. The usage of multi-agent systems in the simulation aimed at a creation of some system that simulates the execution of a real world scenario. This paper presents a model for multi-agent supply chain simulation. Agents of the multi-agent system in proposed model are represented supply chain members, like suppliers, producers, distributors, retailers. Each agent gets materials or goods from upstream supply chain node and sends goods to the downstream node. It calculates current inventory level. Supply chain performance in proposed model is measured by a profit of supply chain members. This model can be reused multiple times for measuring how changes in supply chain member’ behavior will result in the whole supply chain.
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