Understanding supply chain performance by simulation

Companies need to coordinate a wide variety of decisions that will impact their performance as well as the performance of the whole supply chain they belong. There are several simulators of supply chains available on the market; they are classified and analyzed. Then the characteristics of the simulator being developed are presented. The simulation described in this paper intends to support the decision making process by allowing to consider different situations. The performance of a supply chain strongly depends on the coordination of the decisions of the companies. These decisions are expressed by the existing flows. Among the companies of a supply chain there exist three types of flow: information, physical products and economic. These three types of flow are considered in the simulator