Supply Chain Simulation : A Survey

This paper provides a survey of simulation in supply chain management. It reviews four types of simulation, namely spreadsheet simulation, system dynamics, discrete event simulation, and business games. Which simulation type should be applied, depends on the type of managerial question to be answered by the model. Moreover, this paper summarizes novel sensitivity and robustness analyses. This sensitivity analysis yields a short list of the truly important factors in large simulation models with (say) a hundred factors. The robustness analysis optimises the important factors controllable by management, while accounting for the noise created by the important non-controllable, environmental factors. Both analyses are illustrated by a case study involving the simulation of a supply chain in the mobile communications industry in Sweden. In general, simulation is important because it may support the quantification of the benefits resulting from supply chain management