A simulation model for lean, agile, resilient and green supply chain management: practices and interoperability assessment

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia e Gestão IndustrialIn today’s global market, the environment of unpredictable events has imposed a competitiveness improvement that requires a greater coordination and collaboration among Supply Chain (SC) entities, i.e., an effective Supply Chain Management (SCM). In this context, Lean, Agile, Resilient and Green (LARG) strategies emerged as a response. However, interoperability issues are always presents in operations among SC entities. From the Information Technology (IT) perspective, among all the multi-decisional techniques supporting a logistics network, simulation appears as an essential tool that allow the quantitative evaluation of benefits and issues deriving from a co-operative environment. The present work provides a SC simulation model for analysing the effect of the interoperability degree of LARG practices in the SC performance, through Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) such as cost, lead time and service level. The creation of two scenarios with a different point of view about the LARG practices allowed to analyse which one contributes to the best SC performance. Since some of the inputs were assumed, it was made a sensitivity analysis to validate the output of the simulation model. Based on the creation of six types of math expressions, it was possible to establish the connection between the effect of the interoperability degree of LARG practices and the SC performance. This analysis was applied on a case study that was conducted at some entities of a Portuguese automotive SC. The software used to develop the simulation model is Arena, which is considered a user-friendly and dynamic tool. It was concluded that SCM, interoperability and simulation subjects must be applied together to help organisations to achieve overall competitiveness, focusing their strategies on a co-operative environment