Centralized approaches for supply chain simulation: Issues and applications

Chapter 5: Centralized approaches for supply chain simulation: Issues and applications. ISBN: 9781848210905Even if many research activities in supply chain evaluation are currently related to distributed simulation, centralized simulation is still used by researchers and practitioners. The early developed simulation approaches/tools present in the market were mostly known as centralized approaches such as (ARENA, EXTEND, FACTOR, KandanSIM, ProModel, SIMAN, SEE-WHY, SLX, WITNESS) and these were dedicated for flow simulation within shopfloors. The evolution of information and communication technologies, and manufacturing systems impose changes in the design of supply chain simulation approaches. Hence, new supply chain simulation approaches are frequently developed and improved taking into account both industrial and academician needs. However, the majority of the supply chain simulation approaches present and used in the market remain centralized approaches. It is important to state that, in a centralized approach, one single simulation model reproduces all the supply chain structures (entities and links). This means that various models, representative of several structures behaviors, are implemented using a single controller. This practice naturally has advantages and disadvantages compared to distribute simulators, which are discussed in detail in this chapter